Losing One of the Family, Advocate, 18/08/2017

I was originally going to write more about the psychology of political consent. But I’ll pick that up on Monday. Instead, I just want to write a short post about a tragedy I read about yesterday.

Gwynevere's Facebook profile is now a memorial.
One of the reasons news of their death stood out to me in the noise
of tragedy in our world lately, is their name. They chose the name
River Song. They was part of my community, of people who
love Doctor Who.

The news showed up on my Twitter feed. It was a link to an article by The Advocate. “Texan is the 17th Transgender American Murdered in 2017.” Transgender people suffer violence at a disproportionately high rate. They face discrimination, severe psychological torture in everyday life from the casual hostility of ordinary prejudice.

Trans people are the targets of discriminatory practices from the sidewalk to the halls of state legislatures. When I read about one who was murdered on Saturday night, it hit a little closer to my heart than a lot of the other sad news I hear about murder and violence.

Their name was Gwynevere River Song.

I’m something of a Doctor Who fan. I haven’t swum the murky depths of dankness that you find on the Gallifrey One forums in a really long time. I visit often enough to get depressed and leave again.

I’ve been involved with the fandom often enough to know the awful dreck of a lot of Doctor Who controversy about gender and sexism issues over the last few years. The Moffat Hate brigade is a prime example that I think is very important for the show (or any show), but is so intense that they drive people away from considering their points.

Yes, there are plenty of mistakes when it comes to gender and sexuality that Steven Moffat has made, in the show and in interviews. He puts his foot in his mouth all too frequently, sometimes so deep that it’s like his skull is dimensionally transcendental. But he’s not evil.

Most inspirational part of the Smith era if you ask me. I'm not the
only one either.

Doctor Who has made more progress in its feminist and liberatory perspective under Steven Moffat than ever before. Short form, his arcs for the female characters built a more complex life and a more powerful agency than a companion character had in the whole history of the show.

Despite all the justified and reaching criticism Moffat’s characters received, they all connected deeply with a female and feminist fandom.

You can see how deeply Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who connected with some of its fans when you hear about a trans person from the heart of Texas and see that they’d chosen to begin their new life by adopting the name of Moffat’s greatest character and Alex Kingston’s most epochal performance.

I wish we could have learned about Gwynevere for some other, non-horrible reason. That Song could have lasted longer.