I just caught the old TNG episode The Outcast again and now I'm bawling. It's amazing that an episode of network television tackled the topic of gender and conversion therapy more than 30 years ago and did it so gracefully and with such heart.
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As young trans and queer person watching it I found it condescending & a cop out ending even then. It's always weird to me that people think trans people just started existing in the last 20 years, we've always been here including in network TV like Loveboat in the 80 a decade before this.
Her "conversion". Riker goes after her and he's too late and she reassures him that she's happy now and it's better this way, basically, and that very last part I always struggle with.
Perhaps it is the very gut punch of Riker NOT being able to save the day and of Soren losing to the "oppressor" that makes the ending good, despite how I can see arguments both ways, basically 🤔🤔🤔
Yeah the ending is tragic and frustrating. I don't believe she was in any way "converted" - just brainwashed - and I like when Trek is brave enough to not give us a happy ending tied up with a bow. But yeah. Gut punch for sure.
I understand why the showrunners made that choice: highlighting the tragedy helps land the social commentary for mainstream audiences. But the trope of stories about gender nonconforming folk commonly ending in tragedy does real psychological damage to viewers whose lives are being represented
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The conclusion is SO heartbreaking I struggle to put it into words. Just magnificently wretched.