A crazy idea came to me this morning while thinking about this gifset of mine: What if the Doctor has indeed been a woman at some point in his life? And what if Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is not what comes after Peter Capaldi’s, but what was before him, before everyone, even before William Hartnell?
Obviously, this theory was shut down because of Listen. We see the young Doctor, a boy, hiding in the barn, and people referring to them as “he”. And English being a very gender-specific language, that was that. Until my wife said “What if the TARDIS translated it into English as a “he”? What if Gallifreyan doesn’t have gender-specific pronounces and the TARDIS just translated the only pronoun they have into the most general one always used when someone’s gender is not known?”
Let’s break it down.
A funny jab, yes. But is that it’s only purpose? Maybe not. We have seen the Doctor doesn’t give a toss about sexuality, gender, race, religion or anything our modern “civilized” society uses to determine who people are and how much they are worth. The Doctor often references people who have fancied him, be they men or women or Algae, and never shows any kind of disgust or emotion that would show he did not fancy them as well.
“Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President’s wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie.” Since we have already seen the young Doctor as a boy, we automatically assume the lie is the last one. Then we see this:
The lie is who the woman with him was: not the President’s wife but his daughter. So, the last one is true, then?
Again, a funny jab. The Doctor might have been in disguise or the priestesses weren’t in fact too bothered by the gender of the other priestesses, but let’s assume the Doctor actually was a female during his time as a Vestal Virgin, not pretending to be one.
And then there’s this moment. It is so beautiful, because it shows the Doctor has lived so long he doesn’t remember what or who he used to be before (see Heaven Sent and 4,5 billion years). Also, he doesn’t care. As he says, for Time Lords (even though they call themselves Time Lords), gender doesn’t matter. Perhaps they indeed have only one gender-neutral pronoun and refer to themselves as Time Lords, which in Gallifrey is gender-neutral as well, but can’t be translated into English (by the way, are we ever explained why the Doctor can speak English from the start without everyone he ever meets having been to the TARDIS and being translated to by her?).
Now, let’s go back to that moment in Listen and look more closely at the child in the bed.
We never see them too well. Their short hair and childish voice could disguise any gender! So, the only indicator is our knowledge that they are the Doctor and that the people talking refer to them as “he”. But taking into account that Gallifrey has it’s own alphabet, it most definitely has its own language which is definitely not English! Without analysing why the Doctor can speak English from the start and not some alien mumbo-jumbo, let’s assume this is the TARDIS translating a generic, gender-neutral Gallifreyan pronoun into its most generic English variant: he.
At this point, let’s talk about regeneration:
The War Doctor is included in the mix, like Eleventh himself says (so, technically Jodie Whittaker is the 14th Doctor, and Peter Capaldi the 13th). So, 12 regenerations, 13 personalities. And I really don’t buy Eleventh’s “number ten once regenerated and kept the same face. I had vanity issues at the time.“ Tenth himself says, “Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but soon as I was done, I didn’t need to change. I didn’t want to. Why would I? Look at me.“ Yeah, vain, but he also has the same personality. Same body, same character, same Doctor. And we know the Doctor can control the regenerations at least a little bit:
Look at the last one. He is so determined never to be someone else ever again he physically stops the regeneration process several times.
And this is going a bit off-topic, but requires attention: the Doctor we have now, Peter Capaldi, is assumed to be the first of the new regeneration cycle. He is supposed to be the first of the thirteen new personalities of the Time Lord we know as the Doctor. But we know he can control his regenerations. We know the Tenth Doctor who only used the regeneration powers to heal himself also had the same personality. He continued to be the same Doctor. So, Peter Capaldi’s Doctor would be the thirteenth personality, the last one in the first cycle. So, what if - and this is where we go back to my original hypothesis - Jodie Whittaker’s “13th” Doctor is not a new one but the original, the woman the child we saw in Listen grew up to be. This would mean that either the First Doctor was a woman all along OR (and I don’t think it really matters which) Time Lords can control their gender just as they control their regeneration: if they want to change something, like heal themselves or change their gender, they can do that without changing too much of their character as well.
What if the TARDIS takes the Twelfth Doctor back to meet the First Doctor to see where he started from? What if instead of remembering what he used to be and how much he has grown, he decides its better to go back altogether, to his own planet, to his own people, and see if he could do it better this time round?
So, maybe now that the first regeneration cycle is complete, it’s time for the Doctor to meet his first regeneration, something happens (as it always does), time fractures, and he goes back in time to where he started:
Imagine the possibilities this has! We could see the Doctor as they were before running away. We could see Gallifrey before the Time War (which is extreme fun, if you have watched the classic series, since Doctor always just waves bye-bye and goes off to have adventures, even though his superiors are knocking on his door). We could see the Master as he was; the Doctor’s best friend!
We might just see the Doctor, the original Doctor going around Gallifrey or time and space (who says they only stole a TARDIS once?) before growing scared of the Time Lords’ way of life, regenerating into the First Doctor and running away with Susan Foreman. Or we might see Peter Capaldi regenerate into Jodie Whittaker and hear her say, “Finally! Back to the original!”, and off she goes to travel time and space as the newly regenerated new Doctor.
If the Doctor hadn’t been rewarded another regeneration cycle in The Time of the Doctor, this would mean the beginning of an end: the Doctor going back to the beginning and starting the cycle again. But since this is Doctor Who, if Jodie is the original Doctor, something happens at the end of her era which will regenerate her into the first Doctor of the second regeneration cycle, ie. the 14th Doctor.
