Star Trek: Discovery cast to be honoured with award for queer representation

Star Trek: Discovery’s good work with queer representation is being recognized

The cast of Star Trek Discovery will be honored at Outright International’s annual Celebration of Courage Awards Gala on June 5th.

Director of Development at Outreach International Elise Colomer-Cheadle said in a statement (via The Hollywood Reporter) that “Put simply, the LGBTIQ cast and producers of Discovery — in partnership with the franchise and network — give important visibility, voice, and platform to the millions of queer people around the world that have no visibility, voice and platform or cannot use them because of discrimination and risk to their personal safety”

All the current Star Trek shows feature some kind of queer representation, but Discovery features so much queer representation, it’s earned a reputation as ‘the gay one’, a designation that probably wasn’t meant to be complimentary, but which the production should wear with pride.

Because there’s an added value to queer representation in genres like sci-fi, action, and fantasy.

Queer voices are most often relegated to coming-of-age and hot-topic dramas. Movies about a gay kids’ journey of self-discovery, or about the AIDS epidemic are essential avenues for our voices to be heard, but they can be safely sectioned off by mainstream society as ‘gay movies’. These stories are also all about their characters’ queerness, rather than queerness simply being one aspect of the character. This gives the impression that queerness is all there is to queer people.

True representation means putting us in situations that straight people have occupied for decades, like the bridge of a starship. Discovery’s queer characters’ identities and orientations have been discussed, and addressed, but have never been plot points. This goes beyond mere representation, this is normalizing queer identities in the public sphere, which is invaluable.

Discovery features the OG queer couple of Commander Paul Stamets and Dr. Hugh Culber, played by Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruse, as well as Tig Notaro’s Commander Jett Reno. Then there’s Blu Del Bario and Ian Alexander as Adira and Gray Tal, who are both non-binary (Although Alexander identified as a trans man when they were cast, so their character Gray Tal is a trans man).

Doug Jones, who plays Saru, and Emily Coutts who plays Lt Commander Detmer are also gay.

With Discovery coming to an end with the upcoming 5th season, it’s time to consider the show’s legacy. Perhaps its biggest legacy will be bringing Star Trek back to the small screen, and beginning a new era of Trek. Though the advances Discovery made for queer representation will be its most important legacy.

The award will be presented at a gala event on June 5th , hosted by inaugural RuPaul’s Drag Race winner BeBe Zahara Benet.