Star Trek Discovery Casts First Non-Binary And Transgender Actors

Blu Del Barrio and Ian Alexander will both be joining the show for its third season.

Star Trek Discovery New Cast
CBS

Discovery has made Star Trek history in casting the first Non-Binary and Transgender actors in the franchise, continuing the legacy of Gene Roddenberry, who sought to normalize all differences in the universe, told through the lens of Sci-Fi.

Blu del Barrio, who uses they/them pronouns, will be joining the crew as the character Adira. They are described as a highly capable officer who will form an unlikely bond with Lt. Stamets and Dr. Culber. This will mark their first on-screen acting credit, which is a great first step in a career!

Ian Alexander will become the first openly transgender actor to appear in Star Trek when he takes on the role of Gray, a Trill who is desperately seeking to be joined with a symbiont. Alexander identifies as he/him or they/them, and will be known to audiences from their performance on The OA as Buck Vu.

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Michelle Paradise, co-showrunner with Alex Kurtzman and speaking in an interview with Deadline, had this to say on the two actors' casting:

“Star Trek has always made it a mission to give visibility to underrepresented communities, because it believes in showing people that a future without division on the basis of race, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation is entirely within our reach. We take pride in working closely with Blu del Barrio, Ian Alexander and Nick Adams at GLAAD to create the extraordinary characters of Adira and Gray, and bring their stories to life with empathy, understanding, empowerment and joy.”

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Writer. Reader. Host. I'm Seán, I live in Ireland and I'm the poster child for dangerous obsessions with Star Trek. Check me out on Twitter @seanferrick