Not my original content, but something I stand by
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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Serious observation, Prime Sulu is straight and Kelvin Sulu is gay (there was a whole brou ha ha about that with George Takei when Beyond came out). So there is a possibility of orientation deviation (heh) between timelines if they stray far enough from each other.
In the case of the Mirror Universe, I think it's strictly a "same exact people but in different situations" thing. Even while it was still on the air, I assumed Prime Kira was closeted and that was part of why none of her relationships worked out.
Do we know that prime Sulu is straight? He flirts with a woman in "The Way to Eden" and when the literal devil from Christen mythology is aboard the Enterprise in "The Magiks of Megas-Tu" Sulu is able to conjure a woman using the magical properties.
Mirror Sulu clearly is interested in Uhura, despite her rebuffs.
And we do see Kelvin Sulu ever so briefly with his husband and child in "Beyond", causing an uproar well out of proportion to how little the movie choose to show.
However, all those characters might be bisexual. We do exist.
People have relationships that don't work out without being queer.
But yeah, prime Kira is a religious conservative who is grossed out by how libertine Dax is -- dating Ferengi, and dudes with transparent skulls -- and while we're never told how Bajorans view queer relationships, I do view mirror Kira's more unrestrained nature as indication that her prime counterpart is holding back a part of herself.
Yes, it was about being gay or straight. Kelvin Sulu was given a husband in honor of George Takei... an honor he rebuked because he felt they only changed the character for cheap representation points. He insisted that even though he is gay, the Sulu he portrayed is straight. (In Generations, Sulu is married and has a daughter, Demora, who helmed the Enterprise-B.)
Personally, I feel like since John Cho's Sulu is a different person in a different universe (and Cho himself is cool being a straight Korean playing a gay Japanese) Takei didn't need to get so angry about it.
Please don't assume that I thought otherwise just because I didn't explicitly mention every potentiality in that one post.
"Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate."
Takei was not into it, but I do feel like he was overselling just how much thought Roddenberry put into the side characters in Trek. Sulu didn't even get a given name until "The Voyage Home", a film Roddenberry had nothing to do with.
Demora is Sulu's daughter, but there's no mention that Sulu was married, or if he was that it was to a woman.
Funny you mention the character's nationality, considering that Roddenberry envisioned Sulu as some pan-Asian character on indeterminate nationality. Sulu is not a Japanese name, and Roddenberry chose to name the character after the Sulu sea of the coast of the Philippians.
That was not my assumption. I just can't think of any reason to assume that Sulu is not bi or pan, given what we know about the various iterations of the character.
Sometimes the best songs are those that can be interpreted in different, personal ways