Star Trek Star Mary Wiseman Comes Out As Queer

Actress Mary Wiseman, best known for her role as Sylvia Tilly in science fiction drama series Star Trek: Discovery, recently came out as queer and expressed her pride about her sexual identity.

“Defy your every instinct,” said Captain Gabriel Lorca to Sylvia Tilly during a mission in Star Trek, when she admitted to finding it hard to stop talking.

Wiseman had been dating actor Noah Averbac-Katz in 2013, who was her Julliard School classmate. They got married in 2019. “Before Noah, I [had] dated and loved people of all genders,” she said.

While Star Trek did not represent a lot of same-sex couples, it was nominated for a GLAAD award in 2018 for its depiction of the first same-sex couple in the series, namely Lieutenant Joann Owosekun and Lieutenant Keyla Detmer. Sylvia Tilly did not have any sexual chemistry with any character in the first season. Sylvia merely hinted at being interested in “musician” and “soldier” types.

 Wiseman has not been very vocal about her identity until Dawn Ennis interviewed her. In the interview with Ennis, Mary Wiseman claimed that she is ‘not straight’. However, a Zoom glitch caused Wiseman’s sound to go out while she was talking about her LGBTQ co-stars. In fact, if not for a follow-up interview, Ennis would not have been able to get to the bottom of her statement. The initial interview was meant to be a discussion on Wiseman’s reaction to people body-shaming her and her Star Trek: Discovery character.

Wiseman mentioned that she tries not to [dominate conversations about bisexuality/pansexuality] because she hated it when straight women did that.

“I never liked it when straight-presenting women dominated conversations about bisexuality/pansexuality when I was with women, so I try not to do it now, but I also don’t want it to feel like I’m hiding anything because I’m queer and proud!” She clarified.