The best progressive writing Trek did was when they addressed a social issue by having the actors pretend it wasn’t an issue at all.

Uhura was a bridge officer who was a black woman, and nobody cared or even noticed because in-universe there was nothing special about that.

I like how in Discovery a character came out as non-binary and everyone is like “ok cool” and that was that and it was never brought up again (because why would it be)?

You can tell by the absolute meltdown conservative spaces had about that five second clip that it was absolutely the right thing to do.

But that’s not what they did with Uhura. They never hung a lantern on her being black or a woman. She was just there and it was such a normal thing it didn’t need to be addressed in-universe.

Having a character “come out” means the world is one in which people are hiding in the closet because of a social stigma. A world in which that stigma doesn’t exist doesn’t require a character to come out.

Huh? How is Stamets supposed to know if nobody tells him?

EDIT: Also Uhura’s Blackness and femaleness were most certainly addressed in-universe in a longer scene than I shared above.

Don’t spend 5 episodes uses feminine pronouns for the character then have them “come out” as non-binary. Just establish their pronouns from the outset, and don’t make a big deal outside the show about how brave they are for having an NB Trek character.

You don’t normalize something by pointing out that it’s strange.