Star Wars' First Canonical LGBT Character Named

An upcoming Star Wars novel will feature the first canonical LGBT character in the Star Wars universe, according to Big Shiny Robot.

In Lords of the Sith, scheduled for release April 28, 2015, writer Paul S. Kemp introduces Moff Mors, "an Imperial who has made some very serious mistakes but she is an incredibly capable leader and spends much of the book working hard to prevent absolute failure. She also happens to be a lesbian," says BSR.

The writer of the piece hosts the Full of Sith podcast, and spoke with Shelly Shapiro, editor of the Star Wars books at Del Rey; she said that it was more about showing a realistic vision of the universe than about making any kind of statement.

"This is certainly the first character in canon," Shapiro said. "But there was a gay Mandalorian couple, so it's not brand new. It's not something I really think about, it just makes sense. There's a lot of diversity–there should be diversity in Star Wars. You have all these different species and it would be silly to not also recognize that there's a lot of diversity in humans."

The podcast episode is coming up soon; you can subscribe at the link above to hear it when it comes out in full.