Yeah, you're right, that is what she's saying. And i think that's a lot of people's experience, but it's not really mine, so tell me more about how it works. You writing Kirk doesn't change the fact that Kirk is a dude.

But, okay, the point is: fanfic doesn't *fix* representation (and i'll get into that more on the later comment), but it takes the edge off of bad representation for particular individual authors, because writing a character is a way to see yourself in that character's shoes even if the showrunners didn't intend for you to be in that character's shoes.

(TOS had an episode about how women can't be captains? Things i missed out on by never watching Trek, i guess.)