My thoughts on a female Doctor.

[ivymutant]

Cut for possibly sensitive topic.

Comments

[ibishtar]

Yeah, the Doctor has pretty much identified as male all his life so far, and I think getting a female body would be jarring for him at least for a bit. Although we haven't seen it so far (except for the mention of the Corsair), I reckon Time Lords could be gender-fluid. So either the Doctor regenerates into a woman but still feels like a man on the inside, or after the initial shock would feel comfortable in his new woman's body and would begin identifying as female, but brush off as unimportant things like whether she prefers the term Time Lady or Time Lord for herself. I dislike the way it was done in The Curse of Fatal Death, where he turns into a woman and immediately feels attracted to the Master WHAT.

[ivymutant]

My point is though, that suddenly "waking up" to being a different gender, one opposite to how you've always identified and been (for over a thousand years at this point), isn't something I think you just get over and feel comfortable with. What if you woke up as the opposite gender tomorrow, do you think you'd ever feel comfortable with a completely different body and parts?

Again, whether the Doctor likes men or women is completely beside the point here, and shouldn't be brought up. In my opinion anyway.

[ibishtar]

No, I wouldn't. But it is known that a Time Lord's brain also changes when they regenerate, gets re-wired differently, hence a different personality, so I could believe it from a Time Lord if the writers decided to go that way.
I brought it up to support your point about that, because five minutes before he was in love with a woman, and I disliked the way the writer equated the gender change with not just a sudden change of sexuality but of heart.

[atalantapendrag]

It was written by Moffat.

[indraja_rrt]

I guess this inborn gender indentity is wired into the brain. If regeneration gets all the body rearranged, the brain can be re-wired on some level as well. So one could get new gender identity (yet have no own experience and learning on how one is expected to behave in the society if one is a woman).

[ivymutant]

True, but I'd like that acknowledged within the show and get more than just a handwave about it. I'd love it if the Doctor and Clara sat down and actually discussed Gender topics and sexuality and brain wiring and such.

[huggyrei]

I need a button to 'Like' this comment :)

I agree, I'd like more of a discussion. They've already made at least some attempts to tackle bisexuality, depression, and race - this too is an issue that people should be seeing on TV.

[indraja_rrt]

...and how one manages to keep one's personality and memory at all, with all that going on. There should be some carrier for this information which is not the brain itself, yet quite a materialistic one. (That's what I would hope for, this being science fiction, after all, however far-fetched).

[huggyrei]

Oh hi there can of worms

[huggyrei]

Also, just a quick aside on the bit where you say "Time Lords/Ladies have just as much as sense of in-born gender identity (male or female) as we do" - not everyone identifies as male or female, even amongst us humans.

[sachtastic]

Thank you! Thread was a bit too binary for my liking.

[ivymutant]

See, I wouldn't mind, if it had been either acknowledged already that the Time Lords were like this or else it came up when it happened, and it was discussed (rather than "oh look, woman now, that happens, moving on!"). Because it is a realistic thing, given their society and regeneration. However one off hand comment about someone called "the Corsair", who we've never seen, heard of or anything else, doesn't really count, as the Corsair could be an outcast weirdo who the other Time Lords don't approve of, specifically because they gender flip regularly.

I also don't mean to ignore the people who view themselves as being on the spectrum of human gender, rather than as male or female, but I'd still say that most people do view themselves as one or the other, and the Doctor (and other Time Lords) have never shown himself to be fluid over it. It was "oh no, not Ginger this time", not "oh no, not a woman this time! was so hoping to try being a woman".

[jaelle_n_gilla]

For me as a viewer The Doctor has always been male. He didn't seem very put off when Jack Harkness kissed him so I never figured he'd only have romances with women, so that doesn't bother me much. I mean, after a few hundred years you'd at least *try* the other gender once at least? To see what the fuss is all about? Just kidding ;-)
No, I don't think Time Lords can randomly regenerate into another gender without knowing. I'm with you there. I don't think BBC is going to touch that one either.

Another thing that I've thought about with all the speculation coming up: The Doctor has always been white to me too. I haven't seen all of the old series yet: Is there ever a non-white Time Lord or Lady? Do they have ethnic groups on Galifrey? I don't think I would be very surprised if he regenerated into anther ethic type one day (even though I admit I was a bit surprised at the first black Vulcan I saw).

I think I want to see him as a guy who still flirts with women (and occasionally with Jack). That would be just fine by me.

[sparkymark]

I think the first on-screen non-White Time Lord was in The Sound of Drums, and later in The End of Time. There was one in The Deadly Assassin stills but I don't think he made the edit. Then there's the edge-case of River Song.

Can of worms comment on race omitted for brevity

[sue_denimme]

K'Anpo, an old mentor of the Doctor's, regenerated from a white man to a sort-of Asian man (who was played by a white man in yellowface, but still...) So yes, apparently ethnic appearance/skin color CAN change during regeneration.

(This happened in Planet of the Spiders, Jon Pertwee's last regular story.)

[sue_denimme]

Not to mention, when asked by Clyde in Death of the Doctor (SJA) if he can change skin color, the Doctor said, "I can be anything".

[fueschgast]

Ooh, I'd love for the Doctor to accidentally regenerate into a female. Since he does seem to consider himself male, there's the possibility that he'd be really unhappy about being female, but that way they could shine a light on what's its like being transgender. Although it could also go wrong and make it look like being female is horrible.

[emiofbrie]

Drawback is - it would become the focus of the show for far too long.

[karie22]

THIS.