Trek, Trill and Trans

CBS has revealed that two new actors are to join the cast of Star Trek: Discovery for its third season, and their inclusion is a big deal for LGBT fans. Blu del Barrio has been announced as playing Adira, while Ian Alexander plays Gray. Both actors are gender non-conforming, marking a significant milestone for Trek's representation.

Both del Barrio and their character Adira are non-binary. Adira is described as "highly intelligent with a self-assuredness and confidence well beyond their years." They'll be joining the Discovery crew, and are said to form a close bond with Stamets and Culber. The married couple have been the most visible LGBT inclusion on Star Trek so far, being the only gay main characters in Prime timeline Trek. Having Adira become close to them means Discovery is going to have a proud LGBT contingent. We don't know much about Adira, and they don't know much about themselves: in an interview with del Barrio, they describe the character as suffering form memory loss. They describe Adira as having a duality to them: "They're astonishingly intelligent and yet they're still a kid. They experience their emotions at a higher level, like most teenagers."

Del Barrio is a young newcomer, with Discovery being their television acting debut, although they've had theatrical credits since they were a child. They've only recently come out as non-binary, which must make playing the character even more significant for them.

Ian Alexander is a trans actor, who uses they/them and he/her pronouns. He's previously played roles on The OA and The Last of Us Part II. An advocate for trans youth, racial justice and LGBT mental health awareness, they are also the first out transgender Asian-American on television. We know even less about his character Gray than we do about Adira, but we do know he's going to be a Trill.

The Trill are a unique species in Star Trek, and other than the J'naii from the TNG episode "The Outcast" (see my other article), are the only serious attempt by Trek to explore a race with a different attitude to gender. (There were a couple of Ferengi episodes that played with gender change, but they're not exactly serious examinations.) The Trill were introduced in the fourth season TNG episode "The Host," which played with gender identity and sexuality when its guest character Ambassador Odan's host was killed, the symbiont within eventually being transferred to a new female host. Odan had begun a romance with Dr. Crusher, and while it survived the symbiont's temporary hosting by Commander Riker, it couldn't survive the change of gender. It was only a brief exploration at the end of the episode, but it was a start.

The Trill were reworked and refined for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with Jadzia Dax as a regular character. While currently a young woman (played by Terry Farrell), the Dax symbiont had previously been hosted by an old man named Curzon, hence Commander Sisko continuing to refer to Dax as "old man," whatever body they were in. While Dax eventually moved to a new female host named Ezri (Nicole de Boer), they had been male and female at different times throughout their long life. DS9 explored LGBT issues in its fourth season episode "Rejoined," which skirted controversy by having Terry Farrell kiss Susanna Thompson, who played Lenara Kahn, the next incarnation of Dax's former wife.

"Rejoined" was about the taboo on Trill of involved symbionts "reassociating" with each other in later lives. Originally Kahn was going to be a man – an inversion of their previous hosts' genders – but it was decided to make her a woman, thereby making the taboo as reassociation an allegory for the taboo of same-sex relationships in our society. (Notably, none of the characters on DS9 gave two hoots about the fact the two Trills were women.) It wasn't the strongest ever take on LGBT issues on television, but it was a good step forward for Star Trek, which rarely explored the subject in its nineties heyday.

Dax and Kahn's brief relationship were the only time Trek featured bisexual characters (if that word even applies to alien beings) other than its continual use of villainous bi alter egos in the Mirror Universe episodes (see my other article, "Star Trek's Bisexuality Problem"). The Trill are also an interesting look at how another society might view gender, with the Trill's moving from host to host giving them a unique and flexible view of their own identity.

We don't know yet if Adira is human or something else, although the brief footage released does show them swimming in a symbiont pool – the natural environment for the Trill symbionts when they're waiting for their first host. Adira may be a Trill, but Gray definitely is. He might even be Gray Dax – it's entirely possible. One way or another, I suspect Dax will show up, and we've know for a while that the ship will visit the Trill homeworld in season three.

It looks like Star Trek: Discovery is ready to embrace the complex gender questions that the Trill raise, including trans and non-binary actors and characters in its cast for the first time in Trek history. The 32nd century looks to be bolder and more inclusive than we ever thought we'd see.