The Star Trek franchise has a long history of diversity, and this history has helped newer Trekshows succeed in their representation while other modern sci-fi franchises have largely failed. Star Trek: The Original Series first aired in 1966, and spawned a franchise that has grown to encompass nine shows, thirteen movies, and plenty of other media like books and video games. Most of Star Trek's core shows aired between the late 1980s to early 2000s, but as of 2017 a host of newer shows including Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard has brought a resurgence to the franchise.
From the very beginning, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry sought to use TOS as a way to showcase a variety of social and political topics that were in the consciousness of the 1960s American public. These included discussions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other things pertaining to the rights of minority groups that were only just becoming part of the mainstream awareness. As a result, TOS's main cast included a Black woman and Asian man shown in positions of power and respect, and many episodes of the show feature allegories to important social movements of the day, such as the Civil Rights Movement.
TOS established a tradition of representation that has continued throughout the rest of the Star Trekfranchise, with subsequent shows steadily incorporated more and more diverse characters and topics over the years. Because of this, Star Trek has paved the way for its newer shows to be on the cutting edge of diversity. The best example of this is Star Trek: Discovery, which premiered in 2017. Discovery's main cast features many actors of color, including a Black woman as the series lead, and the series was the first Star Trek show to feature explicitly LGBTQ+ characters. Two male characters in the main cast, Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber, have been in a romantic relationship since season 1, and season 3 of Discoveryintroduced Gray, a trans character, and Adira, who identifies as nonbinary.
The amount of positive representation Discovery and Star Trek's other new shows have included has put the franchise far out in front of any other modern sci-fi in terms of diversity. When compared to movie franchises like Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Trek shows them both up time and again. The recent Star Wars films were criticized by some audiences for their refusal to depict the characters of Finn and Poe Dameron in a romantic relationship, and the MCU has yet to feature an openly LGBTQ+ main character. By contrast, Star Trek: Discoveryseason 3 had an episode that beautifully handled Adira coming out as nonbinary, and also included some well-written and believable relationship moments between Stamets and Culber, including the two of them discussing Adira's gender identity and later sharing a kiss.
While Star Trek is certainly not a perfect franchise in terms of diversity, nearly every show in the franchise has done something to further the cause for inclusion over the years. Star Trek: Discovery'slevel of representation would likely not have been possible had this not been the case, and the way Discovery utilizes its characters of color, female characters, and LGBTQ+ characters highlights just how far other sci-fi franchises have to go before they will be able to catch up. Ultimately, Star Trekremains the franchise that most often succeeds in its diversity, while other franchises continue to struggle with getting it right.
