“Star Trek: Discovery” Showrunner: “Absolutely, We’re Having A Gay Character”

The series will also feature a female lead.
From: NewNowNext

 CBS’ presentation at this week’s Television Critics Association summer tour focused on all things Star Trek as the creative team shared some info on the highly anticipated series, Star Trek: Discovery.

Showrunner and executive producer Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) revealed not only that the show will have a female lead, but it will also feature a gay character. Something that the Star Trek universe hadn’t seen until it was revealed that Sulu was gay in this summer’s Star Trek Beyond.

 At the panel Fuller spoke about the choice to have a gay character:

“Absolutely we’re having a gay character. What was very interesting for me going into this process as a gay man who worked on Star Trek: Voyager, I still have in a file folder in my garage the hate mail that Star Trek: Voyager got because there was a rumor that Jeri Ryan’s character was going to be gay. The bile in that letter, I kept it because I was like, ‘if I ever do a Star Trek show, there is going to be a gay character.’”

According to The Hollywood Reporter “the rest of the cast also will feature an openly gay actor to play one one of the male leads (which Fuller confirmed), a female admiral, a male Klingon captain, a male admiral, a male adviser and a British male doctor.”

Star Trek: Discovery will premiere on CBS in January 2017 before moving over to the streaming service, CBS All Access.