Wilson Cruz Of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Featured On The Cover Of Entertainment Weekly’s LGBTQ Issue

Coinciding with this year’s Pride Month, Wilson Cruz—Dr. Hugh Culber on Star Trek: Discovery—was featured alongside five other openly LGBTQ celebrities in Entertainment Weekly’s special issue, which comes out this week.

Blazing Trails in Space

Cruz has been a trailblazer in the Star Trek community for portraying one half of the first openly gay couple in a Star Trek television series, alongside his on-screen partner, Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp). But, before Trek, Cruz was already making waves in the LGBTQ Hollywood scene. At the age of 19, he became the first openly gay actor to play an openly gay character as a series regular on prime-time, in the role of Rickie Vasquez on ABC’s My So-Called Life. He went on to become part of the Broadway cast of Rent (where he worked alongside Rapp) and many TV shows.

Cruz has been championing LGBTQ rights and visibility for a long time, and he takes his role on Star Trek seriously. At the Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas in 2017, Cruz talked with TrekMovie about the importance of LGBTQ people and people of color on television:

I think it’s a powerful message to send that in the future we will have same-sex couples and little brown people in space who are doctors and scientists discovering the universe.

Cruz has expressed his excitement for the EW issue on Twitter, saying, “This goes out to every young LGBTQ kid out there…”

You can buy a hard copy of the Wilson Cruz issue of Entertainment Weekly on their website.

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Why not Anthony Rapp?

That’s a fair question. Remember, though, that this is Entertainment Weekly, not Star Trek Magazine. There are hundreds of celebrity LGBTQ advocates out there that likely didn’t make the issue. You could have just as easily said: “Why not Ellen DeGeneres?” Or, hell, why not Zachary Quinto?

Agreed, but the fact that the two are a couple on the same show, it would have made sense to have them both on the cover. That said, if Cruz is one of the 5 telling their stories, and Rapp isn’t, that’s likely why.

And holy moly, I never realized he was Ricky from MSCL.

It’s not a Discovery issue. And Cruz was important long before Discovery.

I forgot about Quinto. Iv heard that gene roddenberry wanted Geordy Leforge to be gay.

Because while yes, EW will touch on Discovery, his character Ricky on My So Called Life was groundbreaking for television. I think it’s a ‘sexier’ cover and cover-story to catch up with that actor and show that’s he’s still breaking tv barriers from then to now on Trek. JMO though.

If “breaking tv barriers” is the English phrase for “offene Türen einrennen” than maybe.

Well, I didn’t think it was belated recognition for his role in SUPERNOVA.

Pride month happens every year, Anthony’s time is sure to come.

Because Anthony Rapp isn’t a gay trailblazer.

Anthony Rapp is a terrific actor, while Wilson Cruz seems to bring nothing more than his gayness to the show.

I disagree. And I wasn’t meant to be insulting to Rapp. Any out gay actor is trailblazing, in a sense (since there are still relatively few). But Cruz playing a gay character and also being gay was a pretty big deal 20+ years ago.

It’s a Pride cover, not a Discovery cover.

grats to him

I wouldn’t mind the “first gay couple” in Star Trek if the show had picked better actors to portray the characters. Anthony Rapp is dreadful, with the same questioning expression in every one of his scenes. I cringe every time there’s a scene with Stamets. I’d give real money if they’d shoot his character out of a torpedo launcher. Wilson Cruz is OK, but completely unbelievable in his take on the character. He just comes across as wooden, with limited acting abilities. His character is completely forgettable. Tig Notaro was just downright brilliant in her portrayal of her character, and given the poor acting abilities of Rapp and Cruz, I would love to see their characters replaced with Jett and a love interest for her.

Rapp has been phenomenal. So far, Tig has not really been given anything to do.

Say what? I don’t get where you’re coming from on the acting at all.

As with several Discovery characters, I feel that both Rapp and Cruz have often been given difficult material to work with, and have raised the performance above what was on the page.

I really would like to see Cruz’s character explored outside his relationship with Stamets. There’s much more that could be seen in his professional role as the more research oriented (will deal with the strange stuff) member of the medical staff, and it would be good to explore how his trauma is impacting his functioning as a professional.

Tig Notaro has been fun, and we’ll used with the role she was given, but she’s not having to act differently than her usual comic style. She hasn’t had to reach and take on a character far from her own.

Their relationship is simply badly written like so many things on DIS. At least Stamets/Culber are much more believable than Burnham/Tyler. The later relationship suffered under even worse writing, bad acting and an absence of all chemistry.

Damn he’s got one rocking bod.

It’s called photoshop.

This is no holographic projection friend. This is called hard work and sacrifice. Another reason Cruz was a great choice for the cover.

Yep — check out his Instagram if you want to see some evidence!

^^^ Understatement of the 23rd century. 8-)

He really does! A Disco fan snapped a picture of him down in Miami whole he was walking from the beach and wow is he ripped

I’ve worked out right next to Mr. Cruz on several occasions. Definitely not Photoshop.

I’m a little jealous right now Admiral…

I’m a lottle jealous right now.

Sigh. Wilson just gets better and better with age. Congratulations for making the cover!

“At the age of 19, he became the first openly gay actor to play an openly gay character as a series regular on prime-time”

Sounds like a new urban myth as Newton was the first to discover calculus, first interracial kiss in TV was in Star Trek or Thomas Edison invented anyting. Lol ;)

Then who was the first openly gay actor to play a gay character on TV? If you are going to say something is not true, offer evidence. Or just zip your lips annoying troll :)

Hello Luke,
nice to meet you. Thanks for the question, but I do not know who that was, sorry. But I know Georg Uecker as Carsten Flöter predates Cruz by 8 years. I hope that answer helped you.

Thanks for the info, Odradek. Most people outside Germany don’t know that actor or that series, Lindenstraße, a loose adaptation of the BBC Coronation Street format.

It might be splitting hairs, but was the character of Flöter openly gay in the series, at the time of that 1987 kiss, or was he closeted? If the latter, then Cruz is still the first openly gay *actor* to play an openly gay *character* on a prime-time show. Representation is good, but for years all there was were closeted characters (and/or gay characters that would die, aka Bury Your Gays trope), so it does represent something of an advance to have a character whose sexuality is no more or less celebrated than any others’.

That is a very good question, Fred. After 30 years it is hard för me to remember. But I did a quick resarch and the actor said that for the first year of his introduction the character was not established as openly gay for the viewers so that they could bond with him more easily. At the end of the year Flöter was outed and short time after that the kiss happened.

odarek you make a good point that ‘first time in US series’ television is not the same as the first time in series television anywhere.

I think it’s fair to say that, while television series are now sold globally in the era of streaming, American media commentators seem to have a blind spot about historic shows that were not shown in the US market.

Do you all understand the concept of prime time?

Why do you ask? Do you have sufficient clues we don’t do?

@odradek: Apparently, you don’t. Lindenstraße is not a prime time show. Prime time traditionally starts at 8:15 PM in Germany.

  @DIGIMON: If you want to be nitpicky, I read something about 7 PM here:

“Regelungen zur Hauptsendezeit finden sich in Deutschland in den Landesmediengesetzen. Nach § 33b Abs. 3 LMG NRW liegt die Hauptsendezeit im Hörfunk regelmäßig in der Zeit zwischen 6.00 Uhr und 12.00 Uhr, im Fernsehen in der Zeit zwischen 19.00 Uhr und 23.00 Uhr.”

@odradek: If I want to be nitpicky there is no “M” in my name ;-)
If you continue reading the Wikipedia article you copied from the next paragraph talks about the well established start of prime time at 8:15.

Ok, DigiNon, since you now outed me as a careless reader, I will give you the point that Lindenstraße technically isn’t a prime time series. But does that really matter? I think we can agree ,that it is not some obscure programm hidden in a time slot when nobody watches, but one of Germany’s most popular shows, known by everyone? Certainly better known here than my-so-called-life in the US.

Since you claimed that My So-called Life was not the first prime time show to feature an openly gay actor playing an openly gay character it does matter if the show you say was earlier isn’t actually a prime time show.
Ultimately, this whole discussion is rather pointless. Quite obviously, the Entertainment Weekly special issue is focused on American entertainment and so-called “LGBTQ trailblazers” in the U.S. It is not about gay pride around the world.

You just don’t get what the point was. TG47 did, you not. Lassen wir es dabei belassen.

Again, it’s Entertainment Weekly, not a German TV magazine.

Fine, we get your point that there were other gay characters in other countries. What the heck does that have to do with Cruz being the first on U.S.TV?

It’s Entertainment Weekly, not wöchentliche Unterhaltung. It’s writing about American television. And so Cruz was the first openly gay character on Primetime American television, which was a big deal at the time.

FYI,Coronation Street is made and airs on ITV, not the BBC.

This is cool and all, but it still bugs me that it took Star Trek this long to have a gay character on the show. I think there were plans to make one of characters from TNG, DS9, Voy, or Ent gay, but it never panned out. Lame and weak.

But, yeah, finally. Cruz is great though, as is Rapp and Tig.

Garak was clearly gay until they got nervous and did a retcon with Dukat’s daughter.

Yeah you can easily see where they were going with the Garak has a thing for Bashir plot point early on in DS9. Also, there’s the Blood and Fire script that was supposed to be in TNG but alas…

At least we got that script with the fan films. I think it worked better with TOS anyway.

So THAT’S why Garak and Dukat hate each other so much! They had a bad break-up! It makes so much sense!

Andy Robinson himself has stated in numerous interviews that not only did he play Garak as gay, he also played his initial meeting with Alexander Siddig’s Dr. Bashir as one gay guy cruising another one.

And of course he was! It is BLAZINGLY obvious to anyone with two functioning eyes and ears watching that first episode.

Why the change, though? Why couldn’t Garak stay gay? Were the showrunners scared about having gays on Star Trek? There were gay people on other shows at the time in the 1990s, like Melrose Place. Star Trek was supposed to be a pioneer when it came to diversity and inclusion. Roddenberry said that the Enterprise was supposed to be a metaphor for spaceship Earth, which was why he tried to include multiple ethnicites.

It’s possible that the “order” to drop it came from the top. There may have been gay characters on other shows at the time but those shows were aimed at a different audience. DS9 was already quite different from TNG so there may have been a fear that another thing making the show different might scare away too much of the audience. It’s also possible that the writers just didn’t feel comfortable writing a gay relationship.

You know what? It would have bugged me a little at the time if Star Trek’s first gay character had been a sneaky, creepy double agent. The gay characters on TV for years were either comic relief or villains, or both.

I know, Garak was heroic. And all kinds of people are gay.

Garak is pan ;-)

Wasn’t Malcolm Reed from Enterprise originally supposed to be gay? I also head Lt. Hawk from First Contact was gay, but we never saw any proof on screen.

Hawk was gay in the novels, he was in a relationship with Lt Cmdr Keru who served on Enterprise E and then moved on to serve under Riker on the Titan. But that’s all in the novels so…yeah

I remember that. To stop the rumor they went overboard talking about all the girlfriends Malcolm had. They also had him say that he really liked T’Pol’s butt.

It took way too long. The fact that it didn’t happen on at least Voyager but for sure Enterprise was a profoundly missed opportunity. One of the things Discovery has gotten right from the beginning was it’s gay characters.

I’m so proud of Wilson Cruz. He’s has been standing tall in his truth and light for so long to inspire others to know it’s OK to be who they are. I’ve been a fan for years and when I found out he was going to be on Star Trek to play such an important character I was and still am over the mood. Happy Pride Mr. Cruz and live long and prosper.

Good for Cruz. His character is ok. Stammets is terrible. They could have written a much more likeable couple but that isn’t the fault of Cruz.

I think Dr. Culber is the kind of doctor I’d love to have in space or on earth. His character is warm and kind but also principled. He’s one of the only people to stood up to Lorca in the first session before they found out who Lorca really was (Stammets too). Stammets is just that science guy. Not always warm, not always kind but he can be and has been. It takes and Culber to love a Stammet. But for sure I always want more Dr. Culber. I think his character is an untapped goldmine for the show.

I’ll be honest, I never even heard of him until Discovery but I have grown to like his character a lot and happy they brought him back. But Discovery is literally the only thing I’ve seen him in until now. I had heard of My So-Called Life but never seen it.

And its great to see him on the cover!

Same here. But there are plenty of famous actors who I have only heard of because they were in Trek.

My So-Called was a much more groundbreaking show than Discovery in my opinion. Very down to earth and realistic, with likeable and relatable characters.
Although critics and its few viewers loved it, it was canceled to early through that damn Nielsen rating. I bet in Netflix times it had lasted much longer.
It also had an excellent cast. I loved Paul Dooley in it, he later played Garak’s father in DS9. Wilson Cruz was much better in this one if I’m allowed to say that.

My So-Called Life also gave the world its real-life Dorian Gray (a.k.a. Jared Leto).

Oh yeah, and some chick named Claire Danes. ;)

The only other thing I’ve seen him in is the dreadful season 2 of the Netflix teen drama 13 Reasons Why. Surprisingly Anthony Rapp appeared in the very same episode, I believe! I thought it was gonna be a crossover

I hope Culber becomes CMO next season. Dr. Pollard is fine, but she’s barely a character.

He should. I think that Discovery has a smaller crew than before since not all crew members decided to stay on board before the big battle. And Jet Reno should be Chief Engineer. Staments should be operations.

Pollard and Culber seem like different kinds of physicians to me.

She seems like a good clinician a military setting where ER expertise and general skills are needed. She also seems like a no nonsense administrator.

In season 1, Culber came across as a research physician who does his required share of shifts in sickbay. He looks beyond the usual diagnostic algorithms, and is willing to stretch. He’s the kind of doc we’d expect to find in the lab on a research vessel, and the right physician to take on an away team in unusual or unexpected situations.

In other Trek series, we’ve seen CMOs that were both, although Crusher seemed less research-oriented.

So, given that both were on Discovery when it made its transition to the future, and that we’ve never actually seen a CMO, I’m hoping that some kind of division of responsibility could be worked out.

I am all for equal rights, that is what Star Trek is all about. HOWEVER as a white late 40’s male, i am tired of hearing how my kind are dreadful and we should be ashamed of being straight married and white. Well if you can have LGBTQ parades and all that, why does everyone get so upset and hate us white folk when they try to show THEIR pride? Everyone acts like white people are the plague of life, racists, or what not. Trust me, i know a lot of African Americans and Hispanic Americans who are REALLY racist more than white people i know and they say its all our fault they are repressed. I am not responsible for slavery etc so why do we get treated that way? I have a step son who is gay and i have absolutely no issues with it whatsoever, just makes me mad the double standard that people have. Until we get rid of PC and hate and just be OK with this and that we will never reach Gene’s vision of harmony. It is silly.

You really gotta stop taking offense to blanket statements about “white people” and “straight people.” It’s an objective fact that those two groups of people [and the overlapping group of straight white people] have been responsible for the creation of the systems of oppression that exist today. If you aren’t actively trying to dismantle those systems, then you’re perpetuating them. But if you are fighting tooth and nail for equal human rights every minute of your life, then statements about “straight people” and “white people” that don’t apply to you…don’t apply to you! You’re an individual, not a group. So as long as you continue doing what you do to not participate in those destructive behaviors, then I doubt anyone will personally accuse you of being dreadful or shameful or racist or whatnot. It’s great to have pride in yourself and your identity, but displaying it, for example, in a “straight pride parade” is silly, for the same reason Britain doesn’t have an independence day. You don’t know the struggle, because you don’t have to fight for the right to exist the way you are.

Captain of the USS Monte Carlo SS NCC-1986,

I think you are mistaking bitterness over otherwise nice non-rascist whites being oblivious to how the system has been, and still is, skewed in their favor and the fact that they benefit from it over others deemed undesirable by something amorphously labelled “non-white” for hate.

I was born and raised in the South of the 50s and 60s. If I start waxing nostalgic about how one good thing about that era was that there was always plenty of restrooms and drinking fountains for me to use, I’m going to get the stink eye from my friends of color, who had vastly different experiences.

The US and World economy is a white run casino with millennia old games’ rules skewed in their house favor. It takes more than the whites running it not being racist to undo all the unfair skewed rules and laws in their favor.

The fact that we seem to be winning and losing games just as those labelled “non-whites” are, in no way means the tables aren’t biased towards us.

gene would dispute everything you have just written.
don’t take the ‘great bird’s’ name in vain.

tony,

No one contributing to this forum can speak for the dead. Further, the only post in this particular branch that mentions Gene or his other appellation is yours. This creates the impression that one part of your bifurcated brain is desperately trying to communicate with the other. However, you are going to have to provide a lot more detail if you expect any of that internal dialog to be relevant or of interest to your fellow readers engaged in the discussion at hand.

@Disinvited. I believe he was referring to Captain Monte Carlo’s post (he mentioned Gene), not yours.

Jack,

Thank you for pointing that out, but I still don’t see as to how Captain of the USS Monte Carlo SS NCC-1986’s statement of “Gene’s vision of harmony” is in anyway conceivable the taking of his name in vain as tony asserted? Gene DID have a vision of harmony. tony needs to clarify what he’s attempting to address. He’s leaving too much out of his apparent rebuttal to something.

Stretching to give tony the benefit of your doubt, at best he seems to be taking the Cloud William erroneous approach “‘Gene’s vision of harmony’ are worship words. You will not speak them!”

And again, at the risk of straying into what could be misperceived as just as egregious a gatekeeping attempt on my part, it is indeed comment protocol here that no one can speak for the dead or others, only themselves, i.e. tony’s belief of what a resurrected Roddenberry would do contributes nothing to countering anything said here.

It is superfluous and certainly does nothing to counter Captain of the USS Monte Carlo SS NCC-1986’s erroneous contention that simply because he personally is not a white racist, he’s never ever benefited from the systemic white racism endemic in his government, its laws and the culture it encouraged to those ends. Also, his simply not taking a racist world view is NOT all that’s required to undo all that was and is done in those regards to his white favor. His obliviousness to it is not the same as his never having benefited from it.

And, I’m sorry, having been born and raised in the pre-civil rights “whites only” South, whenever I hear a self-professed non-racist, say “Blacks are racist too!” I hear the unspoken “So I should be allowed.” And his contention that world history and the current era is suffering from some sort of shortage of “white-pride” parades is absolutely ludicrous.

Being, “The Man,” try to see the world through others viewpoints and relish the fact that you’ve had a nice couple thousand year run since the Roman Empire — so relax a bit in regards to you finally having to give up just a bit of influence in this new century to others finally. ;-)

It’s not even giving up influence, it’s just sharing a little. And it’s really only a little.

Methuselah,

I would even go so far as to point out that it’s not only a new century but a new millennium as well.

Boo hoo. Show me where straight white people have been arrested, beaten, legally denied jobs and housing, and institutionalized solely for being straight and white.

How does talking about the history of society’s racist, sexist and homophobic policies have anything to do with an attack on you personally?

I’m baffled at how someone can be so oblivious and self-absorbed.

What pride are you being prevented from showing, exactly? Do you want to burn crosses on your lawn?

Sorry to get so angry. But I’m baffled at how someone can see Pride as an attack on them personally. It’s not about you — pride and BLM aren’t about attacking straight or white people, the same way St. Patrick’s day isn’t about attacking the non-Irish.

Why do “they” get Pride? Well, the first marches grew from protests over people being arrested and beaten by police just for existing. In your lifetime, people were forced to live in hiding. So Pride grew as the opposite of shame — because gays were told they didn’t belong in society. Things have changed.

If you’re not firing gays because they’re gay or not hiring blacks because they’re black, or not paying women less because they’re women, then nobody is mad at you personally.

No one is saying you’re personally sexist or racist or homophobic — but there are still policies that are all those things. And if you’re not being discriminated against, it’s easy to think that discrimination is over.

Yeah, things are way better, largely because of the Constitution. But less than a decade ago, an entire state voted to keep gay people from getting married — even though same-sex marriage has zero effect on straight people’s lives.

So that’s why it bothers me that you think a single magazine cover and some parades are an attack on who you are.

On my first Pride march, at age 23 in 1993, people hid their faces from tge local TV news camera because they were afraid of being fired if their bosses saw. There were actually more protesters – with signs saying we were child molesters and going to hell and deserved AIDs – than there were people marching. A couple of people got badly beaten after.

I marched because that year I’d been thrown out of my Christian university dorm and rejected by my parents. I’d been living in fear and shame for so long (I grew up praying that God would make tge feelings go away and swearing that I’d kill myself if I ever acted on those thoughts) that I realized I had to stand up for myself.

Pride was never about making straight people feel bad for being straight. It was saying that we live here too. It was for us to tell each other that we all belong here.

On my first Pride march, at age 23 in 1993, people hid their faces from tge local TV news camera because they were afraid of being fired if their bosses saw. There were actually more protesters – with signs saying we were going to hell and a danger to children and deserved aids – than there were people marching. A couple of people got badly beaten after.

I marched because that year I’d been thrown out of my Christian university dorm and rejected by my parents. I’d been living in fear and shame for so long (I grew up praying that God would make the feelings go away and swearing that I’d jump off a bridge if I ever acted on those thoughts) that I realized I had to stand up for myself.

Pride was never about making straight people feel bad for being straight. It was saying that we live here too. It was for us to tell each other that we all belong here.

And (sorry to continue this so long), i’m a white male and I get extraordinary privilege otherwise. I’ve never had to worry about getting shot or arrested when getting pulled over for driving with a broken tailight. I’ve never been sexually harassed by men at work.

But I don’t see #metoo or BLM as an attack on me personally for being a white guy.

Jack, Thank you for your posts. My first Gay Pride March was 1990, so I know first hand how things were back then and how they have changed. People are so angry about Political Correctness and how it evolves and forces them to change their behaviors. What these people haven’t considered is that PC has ALWAYS existed. It’s not something new. All of the things you mentioned in your posts were PC at the time in the 90’s – they just didn’t have the term Political Correctness. They are not PC now, and it makes some people very angry that they suffer social consequences if they put people down, make gay or racial jokes, slurs etc. There were no consequences back then for bashing or harassing certain groups of people, and I think that’s what they miss. Pride is not about hate – it’s about celebrating diversity, asserting that we are human and deserve equal rights. That’s what the rainbow flag and Gay Pride are about. I don’t hate people who hate me simply for existing. I am just sad about their ignorance.

I have to echo OneMissingNeuron, Jack. Way to illuminate.

“— even though same-sex marriage has zero effect on straight people’s lives.”

That is not quite true. Fiscally it affects them indeed. I belive that is one of the main reasons gay marriage did not happen for so long.

It certainly does not. How does a gay couple getting married fiscally affect you?

odradek, OK, consider this: 2 couples get married. One of the couples is 2 men, the other is two women. How is that fiscally any different than if the 2 men married the 2 women rather than each other? Zero fiscal difference. Fiscal reasons may have been used as an argument by the opposition, but there’s no merit to the argument.

JacK & OneMissingNeuron, married couples pay less taxes than unmarried couples or singles, right? So if you deny people the right to marry you exclude them from tax benefits and that creates an advantage for you. Because if those people have to pay an unfair amount of more taxes you have to pay a lot less. That is why I endorse same sex marriage, by the way.

I would be surprised if they raise taxes on straight couples to compensate for the loss incurred by granting marriage rights to same sex couples.

That doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s not like the tax rate for individuals went up after gay marriage was introduced. Couples might have some exemptions, but what does that have to do with gays? I’m single, my taxes are exactly the same whether gays marry or not.

It might save governments some money (benefits etc) but it still doesn’t affect you as a straight person individually. What impacts do straight people feel in their individual, day to day lives? (other than maybe not having an exclusive right anymore).

More to the point, it’s dangerous — as they did in Prop 8, which was why it was ruled unconstitutional — to ask a majority to decide on minority rights. Rights shouldn’t be a popularity contest. In the Jewish Museum in Berlin, there’s a 19th century referendum asking whether Jews should be allowed to have the same rights as Christians. It’s terrifying.

Incidentally, there are parallels to now — every time we’ve seen a growth in civil rights and equality (ex. the early 20th century, the 1960s, now), we’ve seen a conservative/authoritarian backlash. The pendulum swings back with this same argument atht some of us are more equal than others because we work harder (untrue, usually) or were born here, or are true citizens.

It’s disturbing to have these arguments to quibble bout how some people are more deserving of equality than others.

@Captain blahblahblah – “HOWEVER as a white late 40’s male, i am tired of hearing how my kind are dreadful and we should be ashamed of being straight married and white.” As a white late 40s male, I am tired of idiots like you trying to speak on our behalf. Your idiotic comment is so filled with bigotry and ignorance that I can’t believe you’ve ever actually watched Star Trek.

Crawl away, bigot.

Following up a statement such as “I am all for equal rights” with the word “however” (especially in capital letters) says everything that I need to know about your character.

You are NOT for equal rights because you are bothered by the fact that LGBTQIA+ indenting individuals have a month to celebrate ourselves and our truths in a world that wants to tear us down, deny us basic human rights and is filled with violence towards our community.

You have never known the pain of having your family and your friends disown of you because of your sexuality or your gender identity. You have never known what it feels like to be brutally assaulted for holding the hand of your significant other who happens to be the same gender identity as you. You have never been the victim of a hateful slur because you identify as gay, bisexual, pansexual or trans. You have never been fired from a job because of your sexuality or gender. You don’t know what our struggle is like because being straight entitles you to a free pass in this world.

Comments (or diatribes) like yours are unwelcome, especially in Pride Month, because it intrudes on our light and our truth. Not all straight white cisgendered people are the enemy- but when you make idiotic comments alluring to straight pride and being persecuted for being white (which you clearly are not) then it diverts the discourse from issues that truly matter. It’s selfish of you to do so and I’m deeply disappointed

@Georgiou’s Well said. But I think we need to welcome this dialogue, ‘cause otherwise, nobody understands where anybody else is coming from and resentment builds.

I agree with the, er, Captain in the sense that all these differences (gender, race, sexuality) shouldn’t matter — in an ideal world where equality is unquestioned. But we’re not in that world yet.

And even when we are, celebrating the battles will remind us of where we’ve been.

Calling everybody who doesn’t understand Pride a bigot isn’t the answer, either.

“i am tired of hearing how my kind are dreadful and we should be ashamed of being straight married and white”

I’ve never ever heard anyone say that about straight, married white people — but I grew up hearing it daily about gays.

I’m not denying that the conversation is welcome- I just don’t think it has a place during Pride month. We should be celebrating our light and our truth as I said previously, not having to deal with the insecure ramblings of heterosexuals who are triggered by this month.

I guess. But we all live here.

As a straight white male in my 40s I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t assume that you represent my entire demographic.

I support equality for everyone and love for everyone.

Please stop assuming that you are marginalized because others still need to fight for their right to simply exist without being beaten in a back alley for being who they are.

This is an old thread now, but I’m wondering if he’s talking about the news stories about a small group of guys trying to get a permit for a straight pride parade during gay pride. There was a stir on social media over it. That doesn’t mean he can’t be straight or proud to be straight, but doesn’t he get how it’s insulting to people who have struggled to downplay their strugges (ex. straight pride, all lives matter). I don’t see the purpose of it, other than to insult them.

I don’t see straight men being denied jobs because of who they are; or getting beaten by gays/women; or having politicians argue about whether straight men should be allowed to have basic protections under the law.

Good for him.

This a great. I hope he goes back here at some point now to using his real name, Wilson Echevarría. Be proud to be from Puerto Rico!

Sorry for maybe coming across as homophobic or racist, but I have a really honest question to ask: what’s this Pride thing? I mean I know what pride is, but what are they proud of? Or why is it called Gay Pride? Is gay something to be proud of? If so, why is being straight not something to be proud of or how does it differ? Or are they proud of having come out (which still takes courage, I reckon)? Or proud of how far they’ve come (that I could actually understand)?

Pride as a concept originated when people lived in hiding and faced arrest, firing, eviction, , assault, rejection by families and society and regularly were told that being gay was abhorrent, disgusting, a danger to society and something that shouldn’t be tolerated. If people were found put, they’d lose everything (careers, parents, friends). And we believed this ourselves — we grow up in the same world as everyone else — so suicide rates were high.

Being gay was seen as something to be ashamed of, so some people marched — in the early days they were literally risking their safety, jobs and families — to show that weren’t ashamed and that they deserved the same legal rights ostensibly guaranteed to everyone else. Gradually, it became bigger and morphed from a protest into a celebration.
Pride was also, in those pre-internet days, a time when people could see that they’re not alone and that there were other gay people living happy, productive lives. Most gay kids grew up thinking they were the only gay kids in their schools/towns. We thought we were freaks.

It’s still legal on several states to discriminate based on sexual orientation, btw.

It’s not about saying that straight people shouldn’t be proud to be straight. It’s about saying we’re different but equal.

But it’s not about exclusion, anymore than St. Patrick’s day parades are about excluding non Irish people.

And it’s all the things you mentioned. Proud of how far we’ve come and no longer living in shame.

To me growing up, every day was Straight Pride Day — our society celebrates make/female love and families constantly, and it should — and every day was Gay Shame Day, where I’d only here silence, or, worse people saying hateful things sbout gays.

I think people who complain about Black History Month or women’s marches or Black Lives Matter or even BET as being exclusionary, don’t really understand that those things are necessary because those groups aren’t getting treated worse than everyone else.

It’s about them fighting for rights and recognition. It’s not about taking things from other people.

It’s like complaining that National Secretaries Day discriminates against people who aren’t secretaries. There are literally hundreds of designated days and events for specific groups every year (the other day was Donald Duck day) — that doesn’t mean that they’re an attack on everyone else.

*are getting treated worse

That was full of typos. Sorry. And sorry for all the posts. I’ve recently been hearing all sorts of arguments about how the gay rights movement is identity politics when, in fact, it’s the opposite — it’s about ensuring that all of us have equal rights. And it’s at the very heart of liberal thought — and it’s at the very heart of Star Trek.

So to hear, in 2019, how civil rights are dismissed as identity politics, well it saddens and baffles me.

All good. Thanks for all the post, it’s really been enlightening. And glad you’re not having to be ashamed or hiding anymore!

Me too. Although some people, especially in other countries still are. Even here, there’s still a lot of shame.

Star trek discovergay.

After 50 years and over 700 episodes, it’s about time.

‘Leave any bigotry in your quarters; there’s no room for it on the bridge.’

-‘balance of terror’