While movies and television shows have been trying to rectify the lack of diversity, the representation of the transgender community needs a serious boost. That’s why the news that Supergirl has casted activist and actress Nicole Maines as tv’s first transgender superhero is such a great first step in the right direction.
Having previously worked on Royal Pains, the news of Maines’ casting was revealed at the Supergirl SDCC panel on Sunday. The actress’s character will be Nia Nal, a new addition at CatCo, who is a fierce and driven reporter. Nia will be a voice for the discriminated against and will use her platform to speak her voice, which is exactly the “superhero we need right now”; Maines voiced during the panel.
EW has confirmed that Nia Nal is the ancestor of Nura Nal, aka Dream Girl. During the panel, Maines spoke out about her journey auditioning for various roles, “I’ve just been doing a lot of auditions lately because a lot of different shows have been really eager to tell the stories of transgender people, especially transgender youth,” Maines told the audience. “Because it’s such an important issue right now in our society and in the world. And so, it seems only fitting that we have a trans superhero for trans kids to look up to. I wish there was a trans superhero when I was little.”
With Nicole Maines being cast as the first ever transgender superhero on TV and a potential Batwoman show in the works, which would showcase an openly lesbian superhero; we can say that we are trying to break the stigma of our heroes only looking one way. There’s still a LOT of work to do, but we can look forward to breaking the mold one day at a time.
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
