Disney And Lucasfilm Provide First Official Look At Star Wars’ New Transgender Clone Trooper
Roughly two years after the character was introduced to the galaxy far, far away, a newly released Star Wars encyclopedia has provided audiences with their first official look at the franchise’s first ever transgender Clone Trooper.
Making their canon debut over two years ago in author E.K. Johnston’s 2022 prequel era YA novel Queen’s Hope, very little background in formation has been provided about the Clone Trooper in question.
Born of a Kamino cloning facility and named ‘Sister’ by her fellow Clone Troopers, neither Johnston nor fellow Star Wars author Mike Chen, who penned the character’s only other franchise appearance in his 2022 novel Brotherhood, have truly delved into the character’s history, medical or otherwise.
Truly, all that is known about Sister is that she served alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Commander Cody in the Clone Wars and that she once held some reservations about whether the Jedi would accept her transgender status (“The Jedi are all about transcending things,” Anakin tells her in Queen’s Hope upon learning about her origin.
“I don’t think we can complain if you’ve transcended gender.”)
To this end, not only does Sister currently have little more character than any of the millions of other Clone Troopers seen throughout the series, but it’s also currently unclear just how she came into her transgender identity (to play Devil’s Advocate, it seems like the eventual canon explanation would have to be based in a hiccup with the Kaminoan’s cloning process, as otherwise it would imply that being transgender is simply a social choice, and that would open up an entire can of counter-discourse that it’s unlikely Johnston would have considered).
Upon her introduction within the pages of Johnston’s novel, very little visual information was provided about the Sister’s physical appearance, with the only confirmed information being that she shared the same base attributes as her ‘father’, Jango Fett.
To rectify the limitations of her medium, Johnston would commission artist Uzuri Art to provide an unofficial character portrait for Sister, therein depicting the Clone Trooper as also having long braids and wearing a custom battle armor adorned in the colors of the Transgender Pride Flag. This ‘unofficial appearance’ would later be canonized by Chen in Brotherhood.
However, while this art of Sister simply existed as a personal piece of fan art, it was officially adopted as her official appearance in the newly released Star Wars: The Secrets of the Clone Troopers.
An illustrated encyclopedia intended for kids written from the perspective of Bad Batch‘s Captain Rex, per noted Star Wars news-oriented Twitter account Star Wars Holocron, this guidebook officially canonizes Sister’s above appearance, transgender-colored armor and all.
“When one of our kind expressed her gender identity differently than her fellow troopers, she featured she’d have to hide who she truly was inside,” says Rex in the guidebook. “Fortunately, her brothers in the 7th Sky Corps gave her the name Sister as a constant reminder that she belonged.”
For those interested in checking out the proof for themselves, Star Wars: The Secrets of the Clone Troopers is now on sale wherever books are sold.
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