American actress, formerly of The A-Team, who played Soren, the J'naii pilot who identifies as female and falls in love with Riker, in the Next Generation episode The Outcast.
Melinda Culea is an American actress who played the reporter Amy Allen in the first seasons of The A-Team and later appeared in Knots Landing.
In The Outcast she plays Soren, a pilot of the androgynous J'naii, who works with Riker to find a shuttle lost in a pocket of null space. During the mission she confides that she has always felt female, something her society treats as a sickness.
Their relationship is discovered and Soren is put on trial, where she makes an impassioned plea to be left as she is. By the time Riker and Worf attempt a rescue she has undergone psychotectic treatment and no longer wants to leave.