sex, gender, and the Doctor

[kindkit]

The announcement of the Twelfth Doctor's casting has again led to dismay for people who would like the next Doctor to be a woman.

I have to confess that I've always been a little uncomfortable with the assertion that if the Doctor regenerated as female it would be no big deal to the Doctor. On a Watsonian and also a personal level, I have doubts. These doubts have nothing to do with the solid Doyleist real-world reasons (feminism, basically) why a female Doctor would be a good thing. I acknowledge and agree with those reasons.

My qualms, as I said, are Watsonian and personal. They're to do with the Doctor as a character, which is to say as a fictional person for whom we assume a fictional subjectivity, and with my own experience of gender.

I am, as I think everybody reading me knows by now, transgender. In some ways I actually prefer the term "transsexual" for myself, because for me the issue is a lot more to do with my sexed body and not so much to do with culturally-assigned gender roles. Anyway, being trans means that my relationship to gender and to my body is different from that of cisgender people; I've never had the seamless match of body and gender identity that cis people experience. Much of my life (and I'd better add the disclaimer that I'm not speaking for the Transgender Hive Mind here; there's a huge range of how we trans* people experience our bodies and gender identities) I've inhabited my body with profound discomfort. And yes, my thinking about body and self really is that dualist--my body is something I inhabit, not something I am; anything less dualist would feel like biological tyranny.

So, here's my question to those who think it would be no big deal for the Doctor to regenerate as a woman: would it be no big deal for you to wake up tomorrow morning with a differently sexed body or a different gender identity? Would you honestly feel that nothing of importance to you had changed? I'm not saying no one would feel that, since some people are gender-fluid or genderqueer, but for many people, both cis and trans*, gender is a fundamental part of identity. (ETA: And for genderfluid and genderqueer people, transforming into someone who was single-gendered might feel like just as much of a fundamental change.)

Now, obviously we can't assume that Time Lords experience sex (by which I mean living in a sexed body, not eroticism) and gender in the same way 21st century humans do. But the Doctor has regenerated as the same sex eleven times now. Clearly, being male means something to him. And most Time Lords seem to regenerate as the same sex each time, though we know there are exceptions.

I'll reiterate that I'm not making a Doyleist argument here. There's no innate reason sex and gender should matter to Time Lords in their regeneration, and it would have been cool if the various Who creators over the years had imagined people for whom gender worked differently, for whom changing sex at regeneration really would be no big deal. But the Doctor and every other Time Lord we've seen onscreen, as opposed to heard mentioned, are not those people.

Here's the thing: when people say, in the service of arguing that the next Doctor should be a woman, that gender is/should be no big deal for individual people in their subjective experience of self, I find that both glib and hurtful. The glib part is the way it denies the power of gender in shaping our subjectivities. The hurtful part is the way it blithely ignores the experience of people like me, who live every day with sexed bodies or culturally-assigned genders that feel wrong.

If I regenerated tomorrow into a genetically male body with all the expected secondary sex characteristics, it would be my fondest impossible dream come true. If I regenerated into a cisgendered woman, with my sense of self suddenly matching my sexed body, I would feel like I had changed fundamentally--much more fundamentally than the way the Doctor changes when he regenerates. Either way, it would be a big fucking deal to me.

Feminist arguments about why a female Doctor matters, politically, are valid and necessary. But claiming that it wouldn't matter to the Doctor as a character because gender just isn't that important is disingenuous and actually, when coming from a cis person, shows a lot of unexamined privilege. Cis people can claim gender doesn't matter because they're comfortable in their sexed bodies and (feminist critiques aside) in their culturally-assigned genders. "Gender doesn't matter" is not actually a trans*-positive argument, and I wish people would stop making it.


ETA: Two clarifications, rather late. First, more on Time Lords and gender. As far as we know from onscreen canon, Time Lords have two acknowledged biological sexes and two culturally-validated genders, just like most modern human societies do. And most, but not all, Time Ladies and Time Lords regenerate as the same sex and gender they were before. (I extrapolate this from the fact that we're only heard of one Time Lord changing sex/gender at regeneration, whereas there are lots of examples of Time Lords not changing.) All this, except for the regenerations, is identical to our own sex/gender system, and implies that gender for Time Lords works a lot like it does for us: people are assigned a sex at birth and most of them develop a gender identity that matches it, but some people's gender identity doesn't match their biological sex (nor, for that matter, does everyone's biological sex actually fall neatly into the category of "female" or "male"). Furthermore, the fact that it seems few Time Lords choose to change sex when regenerating implies that for most Time Lords, gender identity persists through regenerations; it's not a fresh start each time. The Doctor will soon have regenerated eleven times as male, so either he identifies as male or, if he would like to regenerate as female, he's both bad at regeneration (canonically true) and very unlucky.

Second: I think what's basically happening, in the kind of argument I'm troubled by, is a conflation of Doyleist or universe-external reasoning and Watsonian or universe-internal reasoning. Doyleistically, no, it absolutely should not make a big difference if the Doctor were female. It shouldn't cause people to stop watching the show, or cause the Doctor to be written as more interested in love and babies than adventures. It should be possible to have a female protagonist who does exactly what male!Doctor does, although other character's reactions to her might be different than to a male Doctor, and that's worth exploring.. What bothers me is the extension of this argument in-universe, specifically to the Doctor's personality, with people asserting that it obviously wouldn't/shouldn't matter to him if he regenerates as a woman. That's when I start to feel like the argument dismisses real and serious issues of identity, because that "should" has implications I've already gone into.

Comments

[hannah]

This post, along with this video, and the fact that Time Ladies actually exist in the canon articulate why I don't want a female Doctor. Mostly this post.

Okay, all of that, and something I saw looking for that video which explained how the Doctor is a rare role model for boys who doesn't solve his problems by shooting things.

[kindkit]

Thanks for the link! I don't read the Doctor as fundamentally paternal in the way Verhoeven does, but I do really like his later point that the problem is not that the Doctor is male, but that the show's modern incarnation has had very few female characters with complexity, agency, and a force of personality like the Doctor's. His term "simpering" is maybe a little strong, but I'm fed up with female companions who are in love with the Doctor (and part of the reason I don't like River Song is that her whole story is about being in love with the Doctor). Even Donna, one of his examples of a strong female character, clearly felt that her life without the Doctor was nothing. What I'd like to see are women characters like Sarah Jane Smith (the original, the one who left of her own free will and just laughed when she found the Doctor had accidentally left her in Scotland, not the later clingy retcon) or Liz Shaw, or Tegan, or even Jo Grant, who was intensely emotionally close to the Doctor but still very much her own person. I'd like to see companions who aren't teenage girls or extremely young women, but who've had time to build their own selves and their own lives before the Doctor turns up. Of course I'd also like multiple companions and male companions to break up the deeply heterocentric dynamic of most New Who, but that's another argument.

[amalnahurriyeh]

The thing you say about the Doctor being male eleven times--that's interesting, and I hadn't thought about that in this particular way. When I've thought about the possibilities for a female Doctor, I've guess I've kind of assimilated Time Lords to Trill (ST: DS9 was pretty formative for me as a sf fan/queer feminist person, can you tell?), in that I always assumed that gender would mean something different to them--meaningful for this particular body in this particular moment, but subject to change in phases. But even if so, it would certainly be jarring, even if the Doctor were OK with it in the end.

(This, of course, makes me want fic, written by people who could actually handle the complexities here. And it's yet another reason to be doubtful that the current writing staff of Doctor Who could actually handle aaaaaaany of the things that feminist fans might want.)

[kindkit]

Ooh, the Trill are a great comparison precisely because they are so different, I think. The Trill and the symbiont form a blended identity, and then that identity accretes with each new symbiosis. The symbiont itself may not have any sense of gender apart from its memories of each incarnation, and whatever gender means for the Trill, they have a cultural apparatus to handle symbiosis that will involve gender changes. Time Lords and Ladies, by contrast, are always fundamentally one person regardless of regenerations that change appearance and some aspects of personality. And all the onscreen evidence suggests that gender for them works a lot like gender does for us--which is a failure of creativity in a way, but I don't think a sudden change of sex and gender for the Doctor makes sense in that context unless, as you said, the complexities were gone into. Which is something I don't trust the current writing team on Who (or for that matter the writers of the Davies era, because I don't they what they produced was much more enlightened than what Moffat and co. are writing)) to handle.

[klia]

I totally agree with you on this. I get the feminist arguments, but I don't think the fact that the Doctor has always regenerated as male can just be handwaved away. It's just too complicated an issue. And, frankly, I cringe at the thought of how they would've handled him regenerating as female.

I stopped watching because I think Moffat has totally ruined the show, but I was still hoping for some sort of change. Like, IIRC, before Matt Smith was cast, there were rumors going around that Paterson Joseph would be Eleven, so I thought it would be cool for them to cast an actor of color in the role. But no.

[kindkit]

Yeah, I think the whiteness of the Doctor is much more "fixable" than the Doctor being male. As far as I know from the canon I've seen, Time Lords don't seem to have racial identities apart from being Time Lords, but they do have a variety of skin colors, etc. So a Doctor who (by human standards) was black or South Asian or East Asian etc. doesn't have the same canonical obstacles in its way. The change could be genuinely meaningless to the Doctor, but not at all meaningless to the humans he encounters, and that if well written could be extremely interesting.

[skywaterblue]

Sometimes I think I'd enjoy waking up male simply to enjoy male privilege, but yes, I think you strike at something important here. Which is why I've always been more interested in seeing an actor of color in the role; it has as an important a thing to say to society, but without getting into places that I think the show isn't really capable of going.

That said, having read plenty of things written by black male authors, I'm rather skeptical that the writing for a black Doctor would really capture any of that experience. We need only to read anything written by black men in the wake of the Trayvon Martin murder to suspect that the all-white, all-British writing team of Who wouldn't really get how wearying constantly being tailed in a grocery store (among other things), and what that eventually grinds onto your soul.

[kindkit]

all-white, all-British

Well, DW is a British show, so I don't think its writers are obliged to capture the experience of American racism particularly. But there's plenty of British racism they could be talking about! It would be really interesting to see Black British writers writing a black Doctor (or I guess I would say as Doctor perceived as black by modern humans, since unlike gender I'm not sure race is much of a cultural presence for Time Lords). Certainly the kinds of things he gets away with, the ways people react to him, and his easy assumption of authority in all situations would be different.

[tree_and_leaf]

Well, DW is a British show, so I don't think its writers are obliged to capture the experience of American racism particularly. But there's plenty of British racism they could be talking about!

Yes, this.

There's plenty of things to critique in how Doctor Who handles race, but I think US critiques of it can be wildly off-beam. I don't think Britain is all that much less racist than most of the US, but the racism sometimes manifests differently. I'm reminded of the split in reaction when Martha was engaged to what's-his-name-the-white-doctor: US fans seemed to tend to regard this as progressive, whereas British fans either didn't care one way or the other, or were unhappy at the trope of a Black woman being 'rewarded' with a white partner. But interracial relationships aren't as culturally fraught an issue in the UK as they seem to be in the US.

(I'm not, for the record, claiming that a British interracial couple would never encounter racial prejudice, because sadly that's obviously untrue, but there does seem to be a real difference in how it's portrayed in popular culture).

[skywaterblue]

I'm talking specifically about the writing/production team in this line. Although at the rate to which Doctor Who sets stories in America to placate the American fans, it would be nice if they got someone with practical experience with America to write it - it's sometimes as blatantly weird and awful as I imagine British fans feel when reading Harry Potter fic with prom and homecoming. I'm not sure you could do the Obligatory American Episode with a black Doctor without having some kind of American weigh in - that would quickly dissolve into a terrific mess.

There's zero diversity on the writing staff at the moment, to the point that guest writer Neil Gaiman might be the most diverse guy who works there. (Being Jewish and an American citizen.)

And yes, I don't think the Time Lords have the idea of race, or if they do, it seems to be their own internal concept that doesn't quite translate to our current conception of skin color/ethnic group based race. (I'd argue that they canonically seem to have castes based on which school you attended, and that the non-Time Lord Gallifreyans seem to be like a separate racial group or tribe.) On the other hand, in the modern series we've seen black Time Lords in passing and Romana doesn't seem bothered much by the idea of changing into a different species look on the exterior. And apparently, the Doctor's friend the Corsair changed gender relatively frequently. That stuff is what makes me agree that the continual choice of a white male from the islands that make up the United Kingdom is probably best seen from the Watsonian perspective as being intrinsic to the Doctor's self-image.

[kindkit]

the continual choice of a white male from the islands that make up the United Kingdom is probably best seen from the Watsonian perspective as being intrinsic to the Doctor's self-image

Ooh, there's an interesting fic in that. Could the Doctor somehow have got "stuck" in that persona in the same way the TARDIS's chameleon circuit got stuck on "1960s police box"?

[skywaterblue]

You're welcome to it! At the very least, the Doctor and Susan seem to have been at Coal Hill long enough for her to register and attend classes. (Maybe several months?!)

[lilacsigil]

I don't think I would be bothered by waking up male (in fact, I might quite like it), but that doesn't mean I'd make that claim for other people. Being disabled and having been seriously ill is part of a big bodily disconnect for me which it may not be for others.

"It wouldn't make any difference to the Doctor" isn't an argument I've seen, though I'm not really in the fandom at the moment - I've more often seen "it shouldn't make any difference to the show Doctor Who", but sadly, with Moffatt's current track record, I think it probably would.

Time Lords can canonically change physical sex between resurrections (don't know about gender) but I don't think that saying "it would be no different to the Doctor" is a particularly feminist argument. I think that "it might be no different to the Doctor" is fair, as is "it might be different". Either way, it's something I'd like to see. And changing sex without changing gender could be cool, too, though probably something I'd rather see in fic at the present time.

[kindkit]

I think that "it might be no different to the Doctor" is fair, as is "it might be different".

My own feeling is that it would make a difference to the Doctor. Here's why: gender for Time Lords seems to work pretty similarly to how gender works for us. There are two acknowledged sexes and two genders, and for most people, their gender matches their sex. This seems to continue across regenerations, since every Time Lord and Time Lady we've seen, and almost all we've heard about, has kept the same sex and gender each time. The Doctor will soon have regenerated eleven times, almost a full Time Lord lifespan, and each time he's stayed a man. This suggests to me that being a man is important to him.

A good fic could certainly convince me otherwise for the duration of the fic, but as an interpretation of "what's really happening in canon," I don't see gender fluidity in the Doctor.

changing sex without changing gender could be cool

Well, it could be interesting. Do Time Lords use technology to deal with non-matches between sex and gender identity? Or, given that biology for the Time Lords seems to be a fraught and taboo-ridden subject, is it discouraged or culturally forbidden and people are just supposed to wait for their next regeneration?

I don't think I could read fic about a transgender Doctor if he wasn't able to do anything about it. It would be too personal and too painful.

[lilacsigil]

This suggests to me that being a man is important to him.

Which is a reasonable and likely interpretation, but certainly not the only one. I haven't seen gender fluidity in the Doctor so far either, but until recently I didn't see heterosexuality and from Ten and Eleven, I definitely do (possibly Four also, but only with Romana, not with humans). I know I'm skewing Doylist here, but part of my wish for a female Doctor is Doylist! And part of that, of course, is a wish for a writing team that will actually do justice to the character, which is improbable right now.

[kindkit]

I know I'm skewing Doylist here, but part of my wish for a female Doctor is Doylist!

Which is cool, and Doylistically I agree with you. A female Doctor isn't on my personal wish list, but in terms of representation it would be important. I just dislike the claim, which I've seen and which some folks are definitely reasserting in reply to this post, that regenerating as female would and should be something that's fine with the Doctor himself. To bring it back out of fiction again: I think that in our culture, gender shouldn't matter as much as it does. People shouldn't be treated differently because of their sex or gender identity. But I think the leap to "and therefore gender shouldn't matter to you, individual person, and your own sense of identity" is a huge problem.

[tree_and_leaf]

Someone suggested that, as it seems like the scene where River gave up her regenerations to save the Doctor's life might well have been put in to get around the 12 regeneration limit, that when he reaches the end of his own lives and moves on to regenerations acquired from River, he could then switch sex and or gender. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure the show-runners, whoever they may be at that point, would actually go for it*, and I can also see lots of ways in which it could be done incredibly badly.


* If only because it's a bit too reminiscent of "The Curse of Fatal Death".

[kindkit]

Yes, fond as I am of "The Curse of Fatal Death" I'd prefer to avoid it in actual Who canon! Particularly the weirdness of the way it suddenly caused the Doctor to be sexualized as an object of desire.

[beccaelizabeth]

I have pondered why I think the Doctor would become cis female if he became female at all, and I think I think this because he changes brains every time he changes bodies. Like he can wake up with new opinions on apples or pears or custard, he can wake up with new opinions on himself.

But logically that means he could regenerate suddenly trans, like he'd have a male body but feel like it didn't fit, and that would be new and unusual for him. But because he could travel to where the medicine is all glowy magic effects then he always could just rewrite any bit he wasn't happy with. So logically he's been happy with many different bits so far. I've got the impression that whatever he wakes up with he just sort of throws himself into being that person and finding out who that is this time, like it's all part of the grand being a Time Lord adventure.

If only his outsides changed then he'd have one opinion on gender and it would probably be disconcerting to not match. But his brain changes so it would be her brain to match her body so she would be a she in all the parts. Maybe.



I don't think he's chosen to be male so far. Regeneration for the Doctor is different than regeneration for Romana. She tried on a few bodies before settling on one, he has to worry about still having all his bits when he's finished.

9th Doctor: I might never make sense again! I might have two heads, or no head. Imagine me with no head, ha! And don't say that's an improvement... But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with.

I don't think the available sample is wide enough to say 'most' Time Lords stay the same sex. Romana has referred to herself as a Time Lord [Creature from the Pit, 1979], not always Time Lady, so it can't be extrapolated from language like through casual references to other Time Lords. From the TV we know The Doctor, The Master, Borusa and Romana in multiple forms. That's four people who stayed the same as far as we could see. And we heard about The Corsair, who changed. There might be more I've forgotten. Maybe change is common and unremarkable, or maybe it's rare, but we haven't even seen 12 of anyone except the Doctor so that's a very small sample to figure from. So it could go any way a writer wants to play it.


I always played the Doctor when I was a kid. I don't like being told I can't now. It's annoying when things aren't choices. But the Doctor would have choices, because all of space and time. So I don't think it would be a big deal to him because he could just choose again. But maybe it would be a very big deal to him so he would choose again. Either story works.