20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek: First Contact
4. Lieutenant Hawk Was Rumoured To Be The First Openly Gay Trek Character
Character actor Neal McDonough appears in First Contact as the doomed Enterprise helmsman Lt. Hawk, and while the film was being shot there were persistent rumours that he would be revealed as the first openly gay Star Trek character.
There's no sign of this in the final film and both the filmmakers and McDonough himself have denied it. Curiously, though, in the 2001 non-canon novel Section 31: Rogue, Hawk is indeed depicted as a gay man.
While it's possible that authors Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin were working from information they had about earlier drafts of First Contact, there's ultimately little reason for the filmmakers or McDonough to lie about those earlier intentions for the character.
It's far more likely that the writers heard about the rumours and then decided to incorporate them into their depiction of Hawk. In an interview, Mangels said of the decision:
"I found it frustrating and disappointing - not just as an openly gay writer but also as a lifelong fan - that gays and lesbians had almost no representation in the future world of Star Trek. Just as Trek has over the decades been a beacon of hope for millions of minority racial, ethnic, and philosophical groups who have had reason to worry about their future, it seemed only fitting that Trek fans of varying sexual orientations got to share that optimism of a better and more inclusive world."