KIRK AND MOST OF HIS CREW SWITCH GENDERS

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 – Story 7 “The Procrustean Petard”

Author: Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath

Publication Date: 1/1978

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 45

Historian’s Note: Clearly sometime after Turnabout Intruder    

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Ensign Ann Aronsen   Crewman Laura Breen      Crewman Brad Collins               Crewman Adams          Admiral Komack         Ambassador Tregarth         Kang

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, unnamed Klingon K't'inga-class battle cruiser, Starbase 11

Planets: Unnamed gender-changing planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins with a landing party consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, and some security personnel.  They are running around an ancient city in ruins on a planet that was seemingly abandoned. Then they are all knocked out by some energy field.  Kirk wakes up first and finds himself turned into a woman. He has not been put into a woman’s body; his body has been transformed into a woman as if that was what he has always been. 

We always know landing parties are risky but not this much!

                It is not just the good Captain either.  McCoy is now also female, and like Kirk he is too is rated “hot” on the attractive scale.  Uhura is now a man.  The only difference is Spock who has remained his normal male self. If this were their only problem that would be great but it appears they are trapped, not the landing party, the entire starship Enterprise is trapped in orbit.   Nevertheless, they are able to go back to the ship easy enough.

                On the Enterprise, Kirk is having the hardest time dealing with his transformation.  Dr. McCoy thinks he will be fine as a woman as a doctor’s duty doesn’t change much.  However, now that he is a meek female, he is finding it difficult to command the respect from his crew that he was used too. Both Spock and McCoy doubt his ability to continue in such a state, but Kirk is determined to beat the odds.

                Spock surmises that this was a recreation planet like in “Shore Leave.” These aliens just had a very odd form of entertainment. While investigating the planet trying to find some way to reverse the procedure Kirk and the landing party run into their old adversary and later reluctant ally, the Klingon Commander Kang.  Kang torments the Captain by referring to him as “Miss Kirk” taking credit for their condition.  Uhura also discovers that several of the crew have gone missing.  These crewmembers are all found gender swapped as well.

From adversary to ally once again!

                Considering they had parted on good terms in “Day of the Dove,” Kirk is not only wondering how Kang had changed them but why.  Kirk gets an unexpected answer, he hasn’t.  Once again Kang and his crew are captured by the same thing that has captured the Enterprise.  It turns out after their last encounter Kang’s wife and science officer, Mara, has left him and joined a peace faction political group of the Klingon Empire.  Kang was so hurt he made sure that his next crew was all male.  Then they got caught in the force field of this planet and group by group his entire crew was transformed into females, with only Kang himself spared.  His crew was so embarrassed and ashamed that they went into hiding rather than face the crew of the Enterprise.  

                Scotty, being the miracle worker that he is, finds a way to break the Enterprise and the Klingon ship free.  Once this is accomplished the two ships head to Starbase 11 to see if there was any way to change the crews back to the way they were.  The two gender changed crews have no way of physically distinguishing themselves between those who had their gender naturally by biology.  Spock and Kang were changed just less so then the others.  They had an extra-Y chromosome making them hyper aggressive.  However, as a Klingon that helped Kang and Spock was able to use his Vulcan discipline to control it.

Mr. Spock always in control even when he gets an extra Y and Kirk becomes a lady!

                Once someone had their gender changed the planet would not change them back even if their ship beamed them down their directly.  Kirk has an idea.  He doesn’t think the planet has a way to tell if a ship that entered orbit was a ship that had returned or not.  So, they should just go back to the planet with only those who changed aboard and the planet should change them back.  There is an issue of the unchanged male.  They theorize that Spock and Kang weren’t changed because they are the strongest on their respective ship.  If they were to go back, they may acquire a third Y-chromosome.  Spock thinks the risk is acceptable but Breen, one of the females turned male, who is now the physically strongest of all of those who changed volunteers to remain male.  Breen rather likes being male so she doesn’t consider it a sacrifice.  Collins also chooses to stay female.  The plan works and everyone is back to the way they want to be.  Kirk speculates that they will have to come back to the planet to figure out a way to develop countermeasures and warn other ships.   

Additional thoughts: Well, so where do we start?  Before I begin with any critiquing, I want to talk about what I like about the story. First, I do like the concept.  Star Trek often likes to work with metaphor through science fiction and exploring the social and physical differences between the sexes is clearly with in their mandate to tell a story about. One of the reasons they thought the planet might have been recreational is because as McCoy points out, as long as its temporary, who wouldn’t want to explore how the other side lives.  It is interesting not too long ago there was this gender swap app making its way through social media. Everyone was looking to see their favorite celebrities as the opposite gender.  William Shatner himself, sharing an image of lady Captain Kirk even said, “I would do me.”

Image all over the Internet and very fit for this story!

                Some of the things I enjoyed the most were as follows.  Captain Kirk waking up in a female body and instantly recognizing that he was in a female body without even looking down was great.  Since this happened in “Turnabout Intruder” he should already be aware of the sensation.  I really enjoyed the use of the chess code trick that Kirk and Scotty use first in “Whom Gods Destroy.”  I like that Kirk was confused as to why Kang would even want to something like this to him, considering how they were helpful to each other in their original encounter.  I also thought it was hilarious that both he and McCoy were “hot” as women.  Because why not?

                Speaking of Kang, there comes a rather weird point in this story (Yeah, I know everything about this story is weird.  We’re speaking relatively.) where it seems that Kang and Lady Kirk almost hook up.  Fortunately, Spock shows up before anything can happen.  It is actually interesting that their sexual orientation changed (or did it remain the same) along with their physical bodies. If Kirk were a heterosexual woman hooking up with Kang would clearly be within the norms of Captain Kirk behaviors.

                I also thought Kirk’s grand plan had a few holes in it. He comes to the conclusion that the Enterprise is the only ship that ever managed to escape from there.  They didn’t encounter any other stuck ships while they were in there, unlike the episode “The Time Trap.” So how can come to that conclusion?  He then adds “or at least never came back.” (p.188) Again, how could be possibly know?  This seem to me to be one hell of a guess.  It turns out to be right but that is do more to the strength of plot armor than anything else.

                By far the worst part of this book is how it incorporated the worst part of “Turnabout Intruder.” Of course, I am referencing the highly institutional sexist Starfleet that won’t allow women to be captains. To be fair the story makes it clear that the prohibition is not actually law.  Kirk says in protest, when it is suggested, he can no longer command since he has a woman’s body, “No law that says I can’t. Law says I can.” (p.160) However despite the law the story made it clear that women rarely make the rank of captain and if they do, they are mostly given desk jobs.  Now in fairness to the authors the next few decades of Star Trek hadn’t happened yet.  So, they are only building off of the material they have.  But to me “Turnabout Intruder” should have been treated as the anomaly considering it completely contradicted what had come before. I find it absurd as it has been established in “The Cage” and confirmed in “The Menagerie” both parts one and two, that the Enterprise once had a woman as the First Officer. If you can be first officer it’s absurd to say you can’t be captain, as one of the first officer’s roles is to be the back-up captain.

                When you come down to it the story is a rather pessimistic view of the struggle for women’s equality.  That in the 23^rd century women are still struggling to get a seat at the table.  At one point Kirk’s internal monologue even suggests he might consider becoming a women’s liberation advocate now that he is a woman, joking to himself that he would be the movement’s strangest champion.

                The thing is much like “Turnabout Intruder” the whole “sexist Starfleet’ isn’t even necessary for the story.  Janice Lester can still be a jealous former lover who covets what her ex-boyfriend has, and is so mentally unstable that she is willing to for him to swap bodies to do it.  In this story it is suggested that since Kirk did not grow up and did not come up the ranks as a woman, he isn’t adjusted well enough in this body to operate in his normal capacity.  I imagine if I woke up in a different body overnight, I might have trouble adapting as well.  

Should it be canon: No.  It is a fun story. However, given the extremely sexist and patriarchal way Starfleet and the Federation are depicted, it flies in the face of the rest of the franchise that has developed over the last six decades.    

Cover Art: As I stated in the volume's first story:

The cover has the Enterprise flying in front of what appears to be a wrecked space station.  Both appear to be in orbit around a planet that you can see part of in the corner.  There is this red haze that surrounds everything.

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5