Little Old Lady Who

[dreamer_easy]

I overheard part of a conversation at the con - forgive me, whoever was participating, as I've entirely forgotten! - affirming that although the Doctor could obviously be played by a Black actor, he could never be played by an actress, as this would make no scientific sense. The more I think about this simple remark, the deeper it gets.

Until quite recently, race was considered to be a real, natural category - something obvious and commonsense, decreed by biology or God. For decades, science's self-correcting mechanism has been chipping away at this illusion. We now understand that, biologically, there's no such thing as race - which means it's a cultural idea, something we invented and imposed. The evidence of our own eyes, which once seemed to confirm the illusion, now challenges it, as we encounter more and more people of mixed race. Sadly, the scientific evidence doesn't mean an end to racism, any more than scientific evidence means an end to Creationism; but we can hope to see this imaginary system of categories gradually blur away to nothing.

Physical sex, bodily gender, are another matter. Nature seems to confirm the obvious, solid categories of male and female with every birth: there are plenty of children of mixed race, but there are no children of mixed sex.

Except, obviously, that there are: millions of them. Transgender people, intersex people, people with any of a great many genetic syndromes which complicate our common sense, either/or picture of gender (and who may suffer very much as a result of our insistence on it). This powerfully challenges the idea that, while race is not a natural category, sex is, and it therefore wouldn't make sense for the Doctor to change sexes.

Despite this complexity, though, it's not usual for humans to change sex without medical assistance. (It's not impossible: there's a family in the Dominican Republic where some of the girls become boys at puberty.) Outside the human race, though, there are species across the animal kingdom who naturally change sex - to have as many offspring as possible, or to keep their social hierarchies organised. Some fish do it, some sea cucumbers do it, shrimp, sea snails, bristle worms, frogs... some species change sex just once, some can switch back and forth as necessary.

These natural sex changes are a matter of rebuilding the body, something which is difficult for adult human beings to do without help - but clearly trivial for Time Lords, who do precisely that at every regeneration. (Hmm, I wonder if this is why men and women on Gallifrey wear the same clothes?)

In fine: whatever objections one might have to casting an actress as the Doctor, science doesn't really lend them any support. Without making any judgements on anyone, I think those objections have more to do with our ideas about sex and gender than the concrete, fleshly reality of sex and gender: and I think those ideas are worth examining.

Comments

[randomling]

Posts like this are why I love reading your journal.

Just saying. :)

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Surviving death doesn't seem quite a natural thing either without medical assistance either ;-).

However, that does bring me to ask...when a Time Lord changes his body (on dying?), how is this happening? Do all Time Lords "die" and "come back" in an entirely different body as part of their own natural biological process, or is this something set up because of being with a Tardis (or are all Time Lords so equipped, but still equipped, eg some kind of medical procedure? Or have the Beeb kept this completely unanswered all this time?

If that's medically augmented, then there's absolutely no reason a Time Lord couldn't come back as anything else human, which includes women (to the shock of some, I know :-/ )

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

I think it would be great to see a cross-gender regeneration.

(Also-- I want a link to something about that family in the Dominican Republic!)

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

*applause* :D

[the-ladylark.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea, and it's got my mind meandering back to lectures on sexual selection and evolutionary theory so I hope you don't mind if I waffle a bit, to take the brain cells out for a walk.

What is gender for? It seems to arise because you have one gender who goes for the long term 'eggs in one basket' (no pun intended) strategy, of having offspring that are definately yours that you put a lot of time and energy into (whether that's by having a large gamete, carrying to term or looking after them until they're 18) and the other who instead opts for a 'more is better' approach. Sperm wars and all that.

This then means that those who are intersex or transsexual are a rarity, something not quite happening as per usual, as opposed to an alternative strategy. This doesn't mean that it couldn't become a valid strategy I suppose, if it was succesful enough, if you assume there's a genetic component. Anyway, if we're talking about Time Lords in general as a species it would seem unlikely that this is a valid comparison for regenerating into a female from a male.

So I think we'd have to assume that if Time Lords can regenerate between sexes as a matter of course, this is something that happens either at a certain time in their life, or in response to certain stresses or influences. It would be interesting if all Time Lords started off female and had later regenerations male, or vice versa.. or maybe it's a matter of choice?

Anyway, I think what i'm trying to get at is that while what we think of as race would almost be a phenotypic variation for a Time Lord, as important or unimportant as hair or eye colour, gender actually has a meaning beyond that in terms of reproductive strategies and plumbing. So i'd be more surprised if the Doctor regenerated into a female than if he regenerated into someone with darker skin. Doesn't mean it's not plausible though.

Ooh. What might be interesting (though not gonna happen on TV) is if the Doctor regenerated into a being that looked like our human ideas of a female, while still being biologically speaking male. Or, alternatively, that we find out 'he' has been female all along. After all, we aint seen said plumbing!

[nyssa1968.livejournal.com]

*applause*

And... Eldrad must live! (is an example that springs to mind...)

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

My understanding was that "sex" referred to biology, while "gender" referred to identity/social construct. So with that premise, transgender individuals don't go to the initial point, but intersexed individuals do.

I am aware of non-surgery gender reassignments, but not of any non-surgical sexual reassignments.

From a storytelling standpoint, I find the idea of someone reincarnating as someone of the opposite sex far less weird than the idea of somone reincarnating at all - once I've bought the latter, the former is along for the ride.

However, there are a couple of flawed analogies: "race" as a concept, is an attempt to apply a taxonomy to the normal human genetic variation. As far as I can tell, there is not a single case where it has proven to be a useful taxonomy (certainly it has less descriptive power than, say, ethnicity, or class does), but I may be wrong. Scientific evidence cannot "mean an end to Creationism" for the same reason that chocolate cannot mean an end to concrete - they are qualitatively different concepts with qualitatively different assumptions and referents. Expecting such is striving after the wind.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I've held that opinion for a long time but have never bothered bouncing it off the thick skulls of fandom. Race and sex, to a Time Lord, are probably no less variable than height or hair colour. (And remember that we're talking about someone whose accent changes with his genetic makeup, too.)

My vote is for Judi Dench.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! The campaign for Tilda Swinton as the 12th Doctor begins today!

[kelemvor.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I can see points both for and against gender/sex-swapping regenerations, which will probably drive me a little bit crazy.

For it is that one theory hypothesis behind sex is that it's to counter the effects of parasites. Given that Time Lords no longer reproduce sexually, that aspect of sex no longer applies, and so could be rather more fluid.

Against it is a little more tenuous, but "Lungbarrow" had the concepts of Housekeeper and Kithriarch, fulfilling roles roughly analogous to mother and father. This (to me, anyway) implies that a Time Lord's gender is fixed.

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Call me a sexist old reactionary fart who enjoys maintaining the status quo or whatever, but I quite like the Doctor as a male character. I just don't see the Doctor as ever being a female (has there ever been reference to cross-genderism among Time Lords?)

I think part of the problem might be that if they cast someone like Tilda Swinton, Laura Fraser or Jessica Brooks, I would be looking at the Doctor and thinking "I find her really attractive, but she used to be a really old, crinkly bloke! Ewwwww!!!" (Sorry, awesome though all the Doctors have been, just ... just ... ewwwww!)
;)


Oh, also, humans undergo a sex change quite naturally - well, about 50% of us do, anyway. All human foetuses start out female, but after 6-7 weeks those with the Y-chromosome undergo physiological changes in response to increased testosterone levels to become male. So, yet more "Science hears your arguments, and laughs at them" to throw at whoever made the original comment. :)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

he could never be played by an actress, as this would make no scientific sense

Which can be cheerfully restated as 'he could never be played by an actress, as this would make the show into science fiction'. :-)

[leecetheartist.livejournal.com]

Um, didn't anybody *like* Joanna Lumley as the Doctor in Curse Fatal Death? I thought she was very good!

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to seeing how the script writers handle the change.

[reasonabsurd.livejournal.com]

Outside the human race, though, there are species across the animal kingdom who naturally change sex - to have as many offspring as possible, or to keep their social hierarchies organised.

I've heard of various animals doing that if they find themselves in a situation where there aren't enough females to sustain the population.

So what would happen if, say, the entire Time Lord population were reduced to two males? One would think, with all their l33t bioengineering, they would have a mechanism to correct this, perhaps? :)

[lferion]

Within the logic of the Whoniverse, I have no difficulty with the idea that gender/sex are as fluid as height and pigmentation.

I realized, though, as a result of reading this entry & the comments, that I (as in just me, my personal opinion & feelings) would have a really hard time with it were they to go that route. I really don't *like* the idea.

Which is not to say I think they would be wrong to go there. I think it would be a bold and potential very interesting move. Just not interesting *to me*. Because *for me* something (and I really wish I could articulate this better -- or at all) that resonates/attracts/interests me would be gone. Now, I'm pretty sure I'd give it a chance, and I might even be surprised, but, *for me* it would be a Different Show, and it would be a very hard sell.

My two cents, no harm intended and I hope none done or taken.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

I've long since decided that, in my personal fanon, at least, a Time Lord may choose their gender at regeneration, although most of 'em prefer to stick with their gender imposed on 'em at birth/being woven out of the loom, just because it's, well, what they know.

But I like to think that there's a perceptible percentage of Time Lords who are, for whatever reason, effectively transgender.

(I've also a large pile of meta about how gender *should* be meaningless in Time Lord society, but I haven't written it down in any way as to make much sense. I really should do that one of these days...)

So, yeah, I'm with you. There's no plausible reason why the eleventh Doctor couldn't be played by a woman.

[michaellee.livejournal.com]

I think the people arguing that 'science' doesn't allow for the Doctor to change skin color or gender are on pretty thin ground -- we don't really know much about regeneration. And there are certainly both biological and technological precedents of beings changing gender on Earth, so it certainly seems possible.

I have a theory that Time Lords regenerate to be compatible in some sense with the people around them -- for example, Ten came about to be compatible (in some sense) with Rose, and Romana basically regenerated into a form that was more compatible with the Doctor. [And arguably, the Simm Master is 'compatible' with the Tenth Doctor] -- and that may mean that it's more likely that the gender stays the same in a regeneration -- but it doesn't rule it out.

It obviously doesn't happen that often -- we've never seen any sign of it in any regeneration we've seen, after all -- but then, how many different 'normal' Time Lord regenerations have we seen?

[jhg.livejournal.com]

Insistence on such an arbitrary restriction by appeal to science, on a show like Doctor Who is utterly ludicrous and, quite frankly, should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

I hope they *do* cast a female Doctor, purely so it will piss off this kind of conservative Who fan with their uneducated, old-fashioned and faintly offensive notions of science and sexuality.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

should I bring up Portuguese millipedes at this point, the males of which break off their genitals with one molt, and go asexual until the the next regenera,... I mean, next molt, when they get them back?

[nnwest.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly!

Did you have a link about the Dominican Republic family? My Google!fu is not strong in this case.