The new era of Star Trek definitely knows its place in wider Trek lore: even as it seeks to strike out into bold new directions that challenge older members of the fandom, there’s usually a reverence reserved for the old stories. You only need to look over the old-school Star Trek Easter eggs in Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy to see the truth of that – to an unexpected degree at times. The tribute to The Next Generation‘s Mr Boothby was a fitting touch, but the canonization of villains, the Furies, was way more out of left field.
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That sort of knowing nod to the past is welcome in new stories, as long as it doesn’t lean too much into empty fan service. Otherwise, you’ll find rather cynical accusations of distracting “‘member berries” tactically deployed for some ulterior motive. I am yet to find what that motive is, but I can understand the cynicism when it comes to protecting old lore. Star Trek has decades of on-screen history, and messing with it does have a habit of biting back. That’s why the decision to bring back one of the early ideas that The Next Generation dropped quickly feels so strange. Provocative even.
Starfleet Academy Makes Unisex Skirts Starfleet Issue Again
Back when The Next Generation was still finding its feet, Gene Roddenberry’s vision for a progressive society evolved beyond the limits of modern life, forming a playbook of sorts. Characters wouldn’t swear (for the most part), nor would there be any interpersonal conflict between the main crew (apart from some notable exceptions), characters couldn’t be stupid (again, only mostly upheld)… He wrote a bible of sorts that would be contradicted repeatedly and often in the name of creating great episodes. His team also created a world so advanced that binary clothing choices like skirts for women, pants for men had evolved out of existence. That led to the now-infamous appearance of skants – essentially a unisex minidress uniform – in the first season of The Next Generation.
They were intended to be sort of incidental – a wider adoption of a controversial uniform from The Original Series when it was limited to female Starfleet personnel – but by the second season, they’d been phased out entirely. Rumors persisted that the decision came from the network, but in the absence of any confirmation, speculation has also suggested it was merely a practical concern. After all, the often all-action responsibilities of the Enterprise crew made that sort of revealing outfit a bit of a liability in a fairly prudish show. But decades on from The Next Generation‘s rejection of male characters wearing traditionally female-coded uniforms, Starfleet Academy has brought them back.
Two separate episodes of Starfleet Academy have shown Jay-Den Kraag, the Klingon cadet played by Karim Diane, wearing a skirt. The first could have been taken as a personal item of clothing, in the context of the episode, but episode 7 makes it very clear that the skirt he wears is part of his uniform. In other words, Starfleet has officially brought back unisex skirts as part of the available uniforms. If the decision in The Next Generation (in-universe) was one of practicality, Starfleet Academy rather undoes it (though Jay-Den does pair the skirt with what appears to be nylon-like tights. An elegant solution to any potential wardrobe malfunctions in action.
Naturally, since the reveal of the skirt uniform – the closest thing we’ll get to skants in 2026 Star Trek canon – reactions have ranged from ambivalence to childish mockery. But when you think about it, the idea of a unisex uniform fits with what Roddenberry’s vision for an advanced society looked like. So who are we to judge?
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Image Courtesy of Netflix -
Image Courtesy of Prime Video
