Trill as Covenantal Bodies: A Jewish Queer/Trans Theology in Star Trek

This paper argues that the Trill are more than a science-fiction metaphor for transness; they offer a theological framework for Jewish reflection on embodiment, memory, and communal responsibility. In Star Trek, a joined Trill is a composite self in which host and symbiont become interdependent, carry memories of previous lives, and ritually bring past selves into the present. Read this way, the Trill function as a contemporary midrash, opening Jewish questions about identity, continuity, and transformation. Drawing on queer and trans Jewish scholarship, this paper explores how halakha can be read through the Trill. The roles of host and symbiont, along with Trill social and religious norms, challenge assumptions that personhood is singular, stable, and biologically fixed. The Trill help articulate a Jewish queer/trans theology in which covenant is grounded in relational continuity, sacred becoming, and belonging, so that transition may be understood as tamim tihyeh, becoming whole with the Divine.