I think this episode was really good…if the issue of discrimination was over literally anything other than a social practice of genetic modification. Star Trek’s hardline stance on linking social genetic modification to eugenics is one of the things that I’ve really appreciated, especially as corrosive “thought experiments” about it have sort of entered back into the discourse. I don’t think you can practice genetic manipulation on a society wide level without it going very bad very fast. At least I don’t think humans can, and the episode doesn’t really make a case for why the Illyrians are better at it.
The core message of this episode is so important, especially at this current moment, and the right of people to self determination and to safety and security in their identities and differences is right at the heart of Star Trek, so I’m glad to see SNW continue to affirm it. But…just…there are reasons, real reasons, with lots of horrific history behind them, for why normalizing genetic manipulation in the name of improving or “fixing” populations of people is still a real third rail for me, and I wish the episode had figured out how to engage with that specifically a bit more. This episode does not actually convince me that in the far future utopia of the Federation the dangers of genetic modification as a practice have been addressed, and in absence of that “It used to happen and its bad, but stuff is better now and can’t we relax a little” is a bit…hollow
I think you could fix this for me if you made it so that Illyrian genetic modification was something that members of their species voluntarily entered into in adolescence or early adulthood. Make it more of a practice that people voluntarily keep up and less of a program that their society runs and the whole thing works way better for me. That also makes the loose analogy to transgender people in our current time, and really just the right of bodily autonomy and self determination, way more coherent.