Star Trek: 15 Most Culturally Significant Episodes
14. The Outcast
The Outcast comes from the Next Generation's fifth season and was the first episode to truly engage with an LGBTQ+ topic. Soren, a member of the androgynous J'Naii race, identifies as female, expressing this plus her attraction to Commander Riker. She is discovered, put on trial and forced to undergo conversion therapy.
The episode was a strive forward in a franchise that had made great waves in almost every other social topic, though had stayed quiet on the topic on LGBTQ+ issues. There has been much discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of Star Trek's approach to this.
While it would be some years yet before another LGBTQ+ topic would be handled in Rejoined, and many years beyond until Discovery, The Outcast was something of a toe in the water.
Its success is up for debate. Jonathan Frakes feels the episode may have carried more weight if Soren had been played by a male actor, which would have visually at least given the character a more immediately recognizable 'otherness'. Ronald D. Moore, one of the principal writers on the series, claimed when asked later about the topic that there was no real interest in portraying LGBTQ+ stories at the time.
The franchise, thanks in large part to Bryan Fuller's direction for Discovery even before it began to air, has become a much more open place for queer characters. The Outcast may have been the first step to get there, plus the topic of conversion therapy has most unfortunately not gone away in today's society.