TNG 5×17 ‘The Outcast’: An androgynous race prohibits any expression of gender, as it is viewed as ‘primitive’.
TOS 3×15 ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefied’: Two members of the same species view the other as inferior because of which color is on which side of their body.
VOY 7×13 ‘Repentance’: Voyager rescues passengers from a prison ship whose prisoners are on their way to be executed.
TNG 2×9 ‘The Measure of a Man’: Data’s sentience is brought into question when he is forced by Starfleet to undergo an undesired procedure.
TNG 7×20 ‘Journey’s End’: The Enterprise is ordered to relocate a population of Native Americans from their planet of 20 years because of a treaty with the Cardassians.
ENT 2×14 ‘Stigma’: T’Pol is recalled when it is discovered she has Pa’Nar syndrome, a disease transmitted through mind-melds conducted by an unaccepted sub-culture of Vulcans.
DS9 6×13 ‘Far Beyond the Stars’: Benny Russel is fired from his writing job when his story about a black space station commander receives scrutiny from the publisher.
TNG 7×9 ‘Force of Nature’: Two Hekarans board the Enterprise to convince them that their warp drive is damaging their home world and the space around it.
TOS 1×23 ‘A Taste of Armageddon’: The Enterprise discovers a 500 year war on a planet that is run by computers that calculate the fatalities and force those people to die.
VOY 3×6 ‘Remember’: B’Elanna experiences the memories of a telepathic woman’s youth, where her lover and his people are relocated and murdered without repercussion.
Star Trek + Social Commentary (context in the captions)
This is the reason star trek exists. This is why it is important. Without this there is no point of making it, you can add all the flashing lights and CG explosions and half naked women you like but without this, right here, you are not making Star Trek.
What does it feel like to be lonely? It feels like being hungry: like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast. It feels shameful and alarming, and over time these feelings radiate outwards, making the lonely person increasingly isolated, increasingly estranged. It hurts, in the way that feelings do, and it also has physical consequences that take place invisibly, inside the closed compartments of the body. It advances, is what I’m trying to say, cold as ice and clear as glass, enclosing and engulfing.
— Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
