‘Supergirl’ Casting a Transgender Character for Season Four

The CW’s Supergirl is casting a transgender character who will play a significant role in the DC Comics-based show’s upcoming fourth season, ComicBook.com has learned from multiple sources.

This news originates in a casting notice for a character called “Nia Nal,” described as a transgender woman in her early 20s. The character is being cast with open ethnicity, meaning that they do not have a specific ethnic background in mind. She may be positioned to take over the newsroom, as she comes in with a strong journalism background a la Snapper Carr and is described as a “young Cat Grant type.”

Ironically, Cat Grant left the news industry to work in government, serving as press secretary to President Olivia Marsdin.

According to the casting call obtained by ComicBook.com, Jia will be “a confident, wunderkind of a fashionista. Once a political speechwriter, Nia is the newest addition to the CatCo investigative reporting team. With her she brings sparlking wit and biting humor but under that banter-y, chic facade, lays a soulful young woman who has much to offer the world.”

Warner Bros. Television has not responded to a request for a comment. Typically, the company declines to comment on casting calls and other such rumors, but we will update this story if the studio does provide one.

Cat Grant’s absence after Season One — when the show moved production from Los Angeles to Vancouver — fundamentally altered the show’s chemistry in a way that it has struggled to fully repair. The character, played by TV icon Calista Flockhart, was a major part of the series’ debut season and reappeared for a few episodes in Season Two.

CatCo as a whole has been a significantly smaller part of Supergirl this season, with Kara’s journalism career largely back-burnered as she deals with metahuman crises. At the same time, Lena Luthor has purchased the company, tying CatCo’s handful of stories to Supergirl/DEO tales almost by default. While James Olsen still nominally runs the company, he has rarely been seen there and Winn Schott left CatCo altogether to go to work for the DEO. Adding a new, recurring character based out of the company likely indicates that CatCo will play a bigger role next season.

Supergirl returns in the fall, airing on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT before episodes of the Charmed relaunch on The CW.