klatukattdreams replied to your post “Okay I was going to reblog the old art but it’s way too bad. Like……”

What’s “a skant”?

It’s the skirt uniform! In TNG, especially season 1 though I think some may have appeared in season 2, they designed a skirt uniform for amab people because in a utopian future there shouldn’t actually be any one item of clothing defined by sex or gender. (For some reason it’s called a “skant” and I can’t remember why.)

The actual issue is probably a little bit more complex than that, TNG was looking at it in terms of strict male/female (and atheist) binary. Outside of that binary, and/or plus religion or culturally significant clothing, it probably is a little bit more difficult to navigate.

The core idea though: 100% agree with. I appreciated seeing the men walking around in the skirt uniforms as a kid, and I appreciate it now. It was great to see characters that didn’t conform to current gender standards in the show. It was great to see people like me reflected, if only very briefly. I’m not the only one to be saddened that this was basically never seen again post season 2 TNG. Eventually all characters took to wearing trousers, but I’d argue this is false equality in clothing - historically it’s become “okay” for women to “dress as men”, but not the other way round. An equal Trek should always include the skant too, imho, or it just plays into current hang-ups and barriers to sex and gender.

There are several amab/coded-masculine/etc characters in the shows who I think should and would be characters pleased to wear the skant uniform.

Bashir is definitely one of them.