Setting aside a tiny fraction of people who – as Diane points out in the article – make their living farming outrage, does anyone actually care about a gay character on Star Trek in the year 2026?
Also, I assume that many of the Klingons we’ve seen on Star Trek over the years were gay. I think he’s just the first Klingon which was identified to the audience as gay.
I care. It’s pretty cool.
Same. And Diané absolutely rocks the character. A+ acting.
Agreed. An engaging character that, like Star Trek is oft wont to do, has an interesting arc that challenges the status quo and pushes for understanding.
does anyone actually care about a gay character on Star Trek in the year 2026?
According to Karim’s recent AMA here, yes, a lot. I’m old but I have to imagine it’s a lot harder being a queer kid in 2026 than it was a decade ago!
Also, I assume that many of the Klingons we’ve seen on Star Trek over the years were gay. I think he’s just the first Klingon which was identified to the audience as gay.
Also yes, the headline makes it clear this is Star Trek’s first gay Klingon. Not the Klingon species’ first gay.
does anyone actually care about a gay character on Star Trek in the year 2026?
Well, yes - plenty of people care about, and celebrate, representation.
“A Russian in a USS ship? This cannot be”
“A bald captain? This cannot be”
“A woman captain? This cannot be”
…
The same people that said Tilly didn’t belong in ST because weight are the same that say people in STA are too good looking. Choose one side, people. Either “no non perfect people” or “no beautiful people”, not both.
Wait, people think Tilly is fat??
She may have actually qualified as obese at times, as there’s an actual medical classification.
I don’t think that’s likely to be the case in that second photo you shared, she does have a heavy build in general, but there have been times since being on ST when she likely did qualify.
IIRC, obese is anything over a specific rage of BMI or BFP, whichever you use. So if a healthy BMI for you is 18-25 and you are 30 then you are obese.
I’m not a pro, so I’m not sure about the hard details, but the point I’m making is that obese isn’t a personal opinion of looks too fat. A person doesn’t necessarily even need to look it, but they could still qualify.
My SO looks fine at 30, but not much above that. I think they’re sitting at 28 currently.
To muddy the waters, being overweight exists somewhere between healthy and obese, and there isn’t a clear definition. So there is definitely subjectivity involved. But I think that when someone toes the line of obesity, they can absolutely be classified as overweight.
We can all see she’s overweight
I can’t. My perceptions have been altered by the high prevalence of obesity in our society. I now have higher standards. She looks a little thicker than most people, but not in a way I’d been conscious of before today.
It’s true that general obesity can make it hard to identify overweight people today. I’m lucky to live in Europe, and it’s not as bad here yet. Wiseman is somewhere around 35-40%, which is where the official diagnosis of “obesity” begins.
This is a good example of soulism. Something as basic about our perception of people as whether they’re fat changes based on our home culture. Ultimately, the quality of being fat is a social construct. Science can’t give us a hard cutoff, only culture can do that. Science can only give us degrees.
A naive realist would respond to this ambiguity by denying its existence and saying whatever they think is fat, is fat. A scientific realist would try to find an objective answer in science, perhaps using appealing to the authority of BMI, or looking for a more reliable measurement. A social constructivist would accept that there’s no answer. But a soulist would begin asking what definition of “fat” helps society the most, so we can make a conscious choice of what to believe. The soulist is the only one displaying true agency in how our perceptual world is created.
I like how that focuses on the desired outcomes. Research shows that health risks increase (on average) after a BMI of 25 (slightly more for women). So I would propose a soulism approach in which anyone over a BMI of 25 be considered overweight. That’s generally how medical guidelines categorise weight now.
Being overweight is in an entirely different category than the other attributes you mentioned because it’s a choice, and more importantly because physical fitness is directly relevant to a soldier or sailor’s ability to perform their duty. In fact, the show itself addresses this: there are scenes that show Tilly jogging around the ship so that she can get a “physical endurance commendation” and be more likely to get into the Command Training Program.
If she were a civilian character, sure: no judgement, no problem. But having an overweight military officer (especially if they hadn’t acknowledged and addressed it the way they did) would be problematic in a legitimate, non-judgemental, suspension-of-disbelief-defying way.
(That said, I don’t think Tilly was anywhere near big enough for fan complaints to actually be legitimate. I’m just saying that, in principle, that category of complaint could be legitimate for that type of character, in contrast to complaints about race/sex/hair that are never valid.)
But you’ll agree that they can’t be mad at once for Tilli not being fit and for the students in Academy for being too fit.
I like how he rocks the skirt, I’m glad SFA finally resolved the skirt thing by having absolute gender chaos.
Worf: I do not see why it is necessary to wear these… ridiculous uniforms.
Riker: Protocol.
Worf: They look like dresses.
Riker: That is an incredibly outmoded and sexist attitude! I’m surprised at you. Besides, you look good in a dress.
That’s true in theory, but TNG still had a gender imbalance in who chooses to wear what under normal circumstances. And of course there’s Berman’s sexism with Troi’s clothes. SFA has complete gender equality with regards to clothes.
(But we can still talk about how Darem and Genesis are very similar characters, but act very differently because of gender socialisation. Caleb and Tarima also have lots of gender socialisation going on)
Was there ever an explanation for why Troi was always dressed for jazzercize? She was a regular Starfleet officer, wasn’t she?
All we know is that Jellico swooped in and saved the day!
I guess there is sort of an implication in Chain of Command that Troi chose to wear a “non-standard uniform” until Jellico ordered her to change. He says, “I prefer a certain… formality on the bridge. I’d appreciate if you wear a standard uniform.” I’ve just done a TNG rewatch, and I’m pretty sure there is no other in-universe explanation given.
Doylist: Berman was a fatphobic piece of shit who told her to lose weight before she could wear the uniform.
Watsonian: She had a special exemption to wear those clothes because of her culture and job. We actually see the same with Dr Migleemo. It appears to be tradition that counsellors and therapists wear less formal clothing to set their patients at ease.
Doylist: Berman was a fatphobic piece of shit who told her to lose weight before she could wear the uniform.
Don’t forget that he was also a misogynist!
Her official role was ship’s councilor, so I’d guess it was to make people feel more at ease and less like they’re talking about their issues to an officer. But mostly - Rick Berman.
She’s the ships counselor, who at any moment may need to have deeply personal and unofficial private conversations with anyone in need. Those discussions are officially informal. Thus she maintains a casual professional appearance.
It’s not jazzersize, it’s public lounge wear, she is at ease to help aid her clients ability to transition to an at ease state.
While doing official duty on the bridge it is appropriate for her to dress in uniform, but those duties tended to be momentary, not planned, so a wardrobe change would’ve been an odd choice.
This is one of several scenes that I bet the actors never expected to be released in 1080p…
Depends what platform you’re on. Facebook? Omfg. They think the whole series is worth abandoning because of the “woke” agenda. Even though ST has been woke since 1960.
Personally, I don’t give a fuck. Kind of like in a game. If a character turns out gay, then so be it. I have no emotion towards it. Overall Academy is a fun series. Just finished the Stars episode with The Doctor and Sam. Fantastic episode. Looking forward to cleaning up the first season
A lot of people didn’t give a fuck about Uhura being on the bridge, but that is not a reason to NOT include her character on the bridge. Just because you don’t consider yourself bigoted does not mean that gay characters should not be celebrated for breaking new ground.
I prefer every player-romanceable character in video games to be bi. If an NPC is monosexual, they should go date another NPC. If a character is ace, then there’s no problem. But I don’t like monosexual characters that date one player character but not the other.
I care on how it’s done, what the writers do with it. I despise the current writers of Trek and they haven’t been able to make a single interesting topic, or do anything interesting with the topics they borrowed.
I hear “gay Klingon” and all I see is another excuse to call everyone who hates NuTrek a bigot.
You know, there’s a solid case to be made for what you’re saying, but you should know you’re not doing a good job of making it.
I think there are people who would agree that the choices seem shallow or pandering (not a claim I’m making, just recognizing others might). But if you don’t say clearly why the writing disappoints you, you don’t have any justification to be indignant when people assume that it’s because you’re a bigot.
I’m not accusing you of that. I’m just telling you how your comment reads.
How many comparisons to DS9 and TNG need to be made before people who defend NuTrek finally get it?
I’ve tried the long ass format of showing before. In great detail. It gets the exact same reaction as what I currently write. So what’s the bloody point?
No offense, but at least match the skin tone of the gum forehead.
Hmm, funny how the first gay male Klingon merits a whole article, but Reno and #1 being happily in love in the same show raises no eyebrows
Stop with the whattaboutism. First of all, it’s literally an interview with the actor about their character.
Secondly, declaring that articles about queer characters can only be allowed to exist if they include some unrelated “both sides” criteria is a clear attempt to silence queer voices.
Alright well thank you for the quick and harsh reply. I maintain that it seems a bit disingenuous and somewhat poor journalism to interview someone about a very specific aspect of a character, like first in history, and completely fail to mention that someone from the exact same species has the exact same character aspect in the exact same show
If by saying they should SAY MORE you think I’m making an attempt to silence, then Kirk I have no fuckin clue what you think attempting to amplify looks like.
Missing the issue entirely.
Problem is the current writers and showrunners declaring “firsts” and patting themselves on the back for things that have already existed in Star Trek.
You’re the one who’s missing the point, in a way that betrays your ignorance about the subject. There were no outwardly gay Klingons who preceded Jay-Den. Calling him the first is only imprecise because he’s tied for that title with another character introduced in the same episode.
At that point you’re splitting hairs. Like the big poster headline that said Michael Burnham was “the first ever black woman as the lead character”, witch both shits all over Nichelle Nichole’s contribution and is also true in the idea that Star Trek never had “THE main character”, as in singular.
NuTrek is wholly irredeemable.
Your opinion on that could only hold any weight if you’d been watching it, which you obviously haven’t, since you just tried to argue that the creators of Jay-Den tried to steal clout from the creators of Lura Thok.
man it’s just crazy all the boxes that have to be checked in order to celebrate lgbt representation! its like the bar is set impossibly high! ugh! so crazy.
Obviously you are not a bigot and think representation is a good thing too! thats why it sucks that everything has to be just so perfectly aligned in order to celebrate it! ugh!
You genuinely think NuTrek is celebrating LGBTQ+ representation? XD
You poor innocent soul. You must think the rainbow logos from major corporations in June are sincere too!
NuTrek is nothing more than low effort slop that’s using the queerness as a shield from criticism. You’re defending shallow tokenism as “high bar”.
weird how many hoops you are willing to jump through to discourage anyone talking about the gays in a positive way 🤔
protip next time you want to LARP as a non bigot, don’t call it “nutrek” that’s a dead giveaway
It only deserves to be called “NuTrek”. It’s a shame you lack the awareness or the standards to see that.
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