When I first came up, the whole AIDS epidemic was starting, and the gay community that I experienced from the beginning of my career was mostly — and overwhelmingly — concerned with staying alive. And, also, I felt really aware of the preciousness of life and time. The gay community and people who were HIV-positive were treated so badly, and I was very disturbed by things. But I also saw a lot of love and connection in the gay community at that time.

Like all progress that is made in all marginalized communities or groups, I think after time goes by and you earn certain rights or you break through certain barriers, you could sometimes, maybe, take it for granted what you have now that you didn’t have before. And then that would lead to a certain lack of community, in a way, caring in a way, that I saw before.”

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away a young Imperial woman by the name of Moff Mors became the first canonical lesbian to be introduced into the Star Wars universe. Mors will be a central character featured in Star Wars: Lords of the Sith, an upcoming novel set within the broader Star Wars universe penned by Paul S. Kemp.

As Big Shiny Robot points out, Mors’s introduction into Star Wars lore, while momentous, might seem a bit underwhelming to hardcore fans familiar with the expanded universe.

Ziro the Hutt, a character introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and C3PO are commonly thought to have been implied to be gay based on their mannerisms. It should be pointed out that Hutts are hermaphroditic and reproduce sexually and C3PO, as best as anyone can tell, wasn’t designed with those protocols in mind. Mors, explained Del Rey publishing’s Star Wars editor Shelly Shapiro, will openly identify as a lesbian.

“This is certainly the first character in canon,” Shapiro said. “But there was a gay Mandalorian couple, so it’s not brand new.” She added:

“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. If there’s any message at all, it’s simply that “Star Wars” is as diverse (or more so because they have alien species) as humanity is in real life and we don’t want to pretend it’s not. It just felt perfectly natural.”