Apex Magazine Issue 58 by Sigrid Ellis

Author:Sigrid Ellis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2014-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

LUG: Lesbian Until Girlfriend–Is–Sent–Into–The–Sun

After Owen and Gwen get their brief and passing same–sex shenanigans out of the way, it’s Toshiko’s turn. But here Torchwood had a surprise for us: Tosh’s relationship with a woman is more than just a throwaway joke! It merits an entire episode’s worth of plot and character growth.

In “Greeks Bearing Gifts” Tosh meets an enigmatic woman who gives her a pendant that allows her to hear other people’s thoughts. This woman, Mary, turns out to be an alien who is manipulating Tosh for her own ends, but claims at several points that the feelings she has for her are real. Whether this is true or not is debatable. What’s important is that at no time does Tosh indicate that what she felt was in any way not real or artificially induced. Kudos for that and kudos that none of the characters expressed surprise, shock or confusion when learning that Tosh had a relationship with a woman. It’s treated no differently then if it had been a guy.

Unfortunately, those are all the kudos I have to give for this episode.

Despite at first seeming like a sign that Torchwood was finally going to start living up to Davies’ promise, as the show went on it became clear that we weren’t ever going to see the woman–loving side of Toshiko again and that queer female relationships were going to be thin on the ground.

The first problem is with Mary’s role as an evil lesbian temptress, which hews far too close to Gay Panic stereotypes outlined by media commentator quarridors in her post exploring accusations of homophobia in Torchwood[5]. This wouldn’t be as big a problem in the scope of Torchwood’s history if there were more queer women depicted in the series. But when there’s a lack of representation, having the only representation involve negative stereotypes is an issue.

To date, there are only three other women on the show that are identifiable as lesbians or bisexuals, and two of them are by implication. Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd of 19th century Torchwood (Exit Wounds) seem to be a couple; Charlotte Wills, the CIA/Families double agent (Miracle Day), explicitly mentions an ex–girlfriend. Other than these minor moments, queer female sexuality and relationships are noticeably absent from the Torchwood narrative. Compare this to how much screen time gay and male bisexual relationships get.

We never again see Tosh crush on, fall in love with, or even mention a woman as a past or potential lover. There are several episodes that focus on or mention her attraction to and eventual relationship with Owen plus a charming episode where we find out she has a thing for a soldier from World War I who is kept in cryogenic stasis in the Hub (To The Last Man). Again, not all bisexuals prefer men and women equally, but the problem is that of imbalance in representation.

Looking at what the episodes offer us, it would be easy to conclude that Toshiko isn’t normally attracted to women, that she was either under a spell or coercion or randomly experimenting.

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