Star Trek: Discovery bringing back its groundbreaking trans and non-binary characters for Season 4

Variety

Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander made Star Trek history this week with their debuts on the CBS All Access series as the franchise's first respective non-binary and trans actors. And Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman says they'll be back for Season 4, which just began filming in Toronto. “It’s a whole long story with them,” he says. As Variety's Adam B. Vary notes, "the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery includes a storyline that viewers have almost certainly never seen before on a major television series: A romance between a non-binary character, a human named Adira, and trans character, a Trill named Gray. What’s more, Adira and Gray are played respectively by the non-binary actor Blu del Barrio and the trans actor Ian Alexander. It’s hard to overstate how significant of a milestone this is for LGBTQ representation, on TV in general and for Star Trek especially. Despite groundbreaking portrayals on shows like Transparent, Orange Is the New Black, Pose and Billions, trans and non-binary characters remain quite rare on TV, and there has never been explicitly identified trans and non-binary representation on Star Trek. What makes it all the more remarkable is that this is not only Del Barrio’s first TV role — cast while Del Barrio, now 23, was finishing their final year in drama school — but when they were cast as Adira, Del Barrio had barely started the coming out process themselves as non-binary." Del Barrio adds: “I understood myself to not be cisgender. But it was not something that I was talking about with a lot of people, it was definitely still in my own brain. My plan was, like, I’ll graduate, and then I’ll figure all of this out. Instead, this (show) happened, which, in turn, helped me figure this out!” Meanwhile, co-showrunner Michelle Paradise says of adding Del Barrio and Alexander: “We really wanted to look around and see what sorts of new stories we could tell. Star Trek has always represented a myriad of voices. Who are the voices that we are not hearing from? Which are the characters that we are not seeing? Right now, what’s an important voice that we want to hear through these characters?" Kurtzman adds: "It just felt like a really interesting way to do it. There’s no magic formula for it. A lot of the time, you’re in the writers room, and you’re just sort of following your heart and you’re following your gut, and you’re trying to navigate toward what feels emotionally correct. This felt very emotionally correct.”

ALSO:

• Ian Alexander on playing the Star Trek franchise's first transgender character: "Playing Gray really has reassured a lot of my own self-confidence, and really boosted that belief and faith that I have in myself. Because I think I do tend to feel a lot of imposter syndrome. I think that's sort of the conundrum of a lot of other trans actors -- and just anyone in general experiences this to some extent. But especially trans actors because there are so few opportunities for us that when we finally do get those opportunities, it feels kind of alienating. It feels like we shouldn't be there because it feels sort of unexpected that we are finally getting included in ways that we weren't before."
• Blu del Barrio on playing the Star Trek franchise's first non-binary character: "Getting this job and getting to play Adira was really overwhelming at first, but overall a massive blessing because it allowed me to explore myself. I've grown alongside Adira. It's a really strange way for it to happen, but I'm so glad that it has."
• Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander made "Forget Me Not" one of the most emotional Star Trek: Discovery installments ever