Yessss it's absolutely my preferred reading of canon TOS! Kirk was iirc deliberately constructed to blur masculinity and femininity (and relatedly, he is way less caught up in the Spock and McCoy masculinity sweepstakes and uncomfortable with exclusively or overwhelmingly masculine roles, and often filmed like a Girl of the Week) and he's just super easy for me to read as a semi-closeted nb person. And meanwhile Spock is just out there referring to himself as "a man who is not hers" in "Amok Time" and (when alone with Kirk) "Nor am I a man" also in "Amok Time."
(I personally believe that TOS is happening in a not just metaphorically, but in-world literally, queerphobic era that is early in slowly shifting towards a less reactionary culture, and that both Kirk and Spock are currently somewhat closeted on a sexuality front, though they're bad at it in different ways. And given the obvious in-world misogyny and gender essentialism etc, I could easily believe that is also true of gender—though it doesn't have to be the case, I just see TOS Kirk's "I'm entirely happy to take up a maternal role and super weirded out by a paternal one for Reasons" and the rest as more transfem nb, and Spock as more of a general genderfuck type but not a woman—I saw an interesting argument that Vulcan make-up tends to be more muted on men and more flamboyant on women, and Spock's distinctly Vulcan make-up style much more closely resembles the make-up style of female Vulcans like T'Pring rather than his father's or most other Vulcan men's, but without any implication that he is a woman per se).
There are a lot of trans K/S headcanons on Tumblr but they're overwhelmingly binary transmasc esp with Kirk, and I'm thinking "well it's the only trans Kirk interpretation I absolutely cannot see, but whatever floats your boat. Meanwhile I'm going to play happily in the nb sandbox elsewhere."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2025-04-19 04:26 am (UTC)(I personally believe that TOS is happening in a not just metaphorically, but in-world literally, queerphobic era that is early in slowly shifting towards a less reactionary culture, and that both Kirk and Spock are currently somewhat closeted on a sexuality front, though they're bad at it in different ways. And given the obvious in-world misogyny and gender essentialism etc, I could easily believe that is also true of gender—though it doesn't have to be the case, I just see TOS Kirk's "I'm entirely happy to take up a maternal role and super weirded out by a paternal one for Reasons" and the rest as more transfem nb, and Spock as more of a general genderfuck type but not a woman—I saw an interesting argument that Vulcan make-up tends to be more muted on men and more flamboyant on women, and Spock's distinctly Vulcan make-up style much more closely resembles the make-up style of female Vulcans like T'Pring rather than his father's or most other Vulcan men's, but without any implication that he is a woman per se).
There are a lot of trans K/S headcanons on Tumblr but they're overwhelmingly binary transmasc esp with Kirk, and I'm thinking "well it's the only trans Kirk interpretation I absolutely cannot see, but whatever floats your boat. Meanwhile I'm going to play happily in the nb sandbox elsewhere."