10 Times Star Trek: The Next Generation Went Woke

"Congratulations, Data. It's a girl," declares Deanna Troi as Data's child is descended down from the laboratory alcove in The Offspring. The episode has quite rightly been praised for its stance on gender identity in that Data allows his child to choose their own gender and appearance rather than choosing for them — a radical statement for television in the early 1990s. To frame that within the context of this article, that might be the most 'woke' thing on this list. The episode also invites, I feel, another queer reading entirely.

"That is why you must choose a gender, Lal, to complete your appearance," Data replies to Lal when they say they are "inadequate" because they are "gender neuter," or what might now be considered agender, gender non-binary, or genderqueer. Data's "you must choose" is, in fact, a warning that the parameters for the android's decision are strictly pre-defined such that Lal will be reinscribed back into the matrix of heterosexuality and gender-normativity. Lal was never given the option to remain non-binary.

Like contemporary gender reveal parties in the real world — blue or pink, boy or girl — Lal's unveiling in the lab re-concretises their identity in line with the gender binary. Lal must now exist in the permanent state of 'human female,' in Troi's earlier words, "for [her] lifetime," reiterated and re-enacted by "it's a girl" in the performative style of Picard's 'make it so'. 

By the end of the episode, we witness the terrible consequences that the imposition of societal gender norms can have.