I have been a fan of Doctor Who for nearly my entire life. As an American, my experience is a little different than fans in the UK. For me as a child in the early 1980’s, I sneaking to the TV late Sunday night, with the tacit unintentional apathy of my single mother giving me the freedom to indulge. I only knew one other person who watched the show in my school, and we were the odd ones playing an entirely different kind of doctor on the playground. I was the Doctor and she was Leela, the jungle gym was a Dalek jail and we had wonderful adventures.
The Doctor was one of my main male role models growing up (Captain Kirk being the other, which explains a lot). Which is why I think I have such a visceral reaction when people bring up the Doctor being played by a woman. It is the reaction that many must experience when coming to terms when a trans-gendered parent comes out to them, except in this case with a fictional character I can have an opinion, and that opinion has been “No the Doctor should be a male”
Today, I took a hard look at why I think that, and my own personal reasons for wanting that and I saw how selfish my own reasons are. I felt like for the Doctor to be played by a woman mean losing *my* Doctor. The truth of the matter is, he is not mine to lose, he was already there for me, filling a need in my life when I had one and that would never change. What right do I have to deny that same experience to that 6 year old girl who doesn’t have a mom to have the Doctor be able to fill that role for her.
While there are so many more women and persons of color roles and role models then there were when Doctor Who started, representation still matters. It just took a little bit of soul searching for this old Whovian to remember that.
No matter what, I’m confident that whatever parts the Doctor sports, there will still be a TARDIS, there will still be Dalek jails and there will still be lots and lots of running, and it will be fantastic.