Intercourse

I want to compare two exchanges. The first is from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Measure of a Man, where Capt. Picard argues on behalf of Data’s rights as an intelligent being. The second is from The Ties That [Don’t] Bind: Transgender Family Law and the Unmaking of Families, which documents the case of a transgender man’s custody hearing.

PICARD: (lifts out the holocube, and triggers it; Tasha stands before them) And this? You have no portraits of any other of your crewmates. Why this person?

DATA: I would prefer not to answer that question, sir. I gave my word.

PICARD: Mister Data, may I remind you, that you are under oath. (more gently now) And under the circumstances, I don’t think Tasha would mind.

DATA: (swallowing convulsively several times) She was important to me… we were… intimate.

Phillipa is literally rocked back in her chair.

PICARD: I have no further questions of this witness.

Michael Kantaras’s three-week custody trial was devoted almost entirely to a single issue: whether Michael has a penis deemed sufficient for penetration. His wife’s attorney barraged Michael with questions— whether he could urinate standing up, whether he used a dildo, whether he could have (in her words) “normal sex.” She asked what sexual positions he used and feigned disbelief when Michael stated that he and his wife had enjoyed a fulfilling sexual relationship. Michael’s answers— which included intimate statements such as, “Sometimes [we had sex] in the missionary position with me on top, sometimes she was on top,” and, “the size of my penis may have been small, but there was penetration”— were broadcast with sensationalist enthusiasm on Court TV and were enshrined on the program’s Web site.