'Law & Order: SVU' Finally Has a Bisexual Main Character

In its 21st season finale, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit just did something that has been done with incredible rarity throughout the entirety of the massive Law & Order franchise — confirmed one of the series regular characters as LGBTQ.

At the start of the season, a new officer was added to the squad: Kat Azar Tamin, played by Jamie Gray Hyder. Our glimpses into her private life were limited, something any SVU fans recognize as standard for the show, which has always preferred to reveal details about its main characters at an excruciatingly slow rate.

But in the finale, Kat oh-so-casually confirmed what many of us already suspected for literally no good reason) — she dates both men and women.

SVU is the only show from the Law & Order franchise currently on television (for now), and while the show has been aggressively inclusive of the LGBTQ community in terms of guest stars literally since the pilot, there hasn’t been a regular LGBTQ character since BD Wong hung up the proverbial hat as psychiatrist Dr. George Huang back in season 12.

Part of the reason for this can be attributed to the fact that there are so rarely changes to the main cast of characters, and even with those we’ve come to know, the show doesn’t always dive into their love lives.

But that’s actually what makes the confirmation of Kat’s sexuality so phenomenal. There is no deep dive into her love life. There is no coming out. There is no reveal. There’s simply a moment at the start of the episode where she and another character (Amanda Rollins, played by Kelli Giddish) talk about their plans for the night. Kat shows her two match options on a dating app and asks “What do you think? Gene or Gina?” before Rollins just as casually replies “Gina.”

It’s a welcome inclusion, and one that comes from a place of authenticity for Hyder.

“I, Jamie, have been intimate both with men and women in my life and so I can definitely understand the idea of being attracted to people without needing to fully choose one gender for instance,” she told E! News.

“I think that now is a better time than ever to present a member of this community in a way that reminds you that we’re all the same and that we’re all human beings.”

SVU has always been the superior Law & Order, let’s be real, but the franchise has certainly come a LONG way from that iconic moment of Elisabeth Röhm’s Serena Southerlyn suddenly coming out as she demanded “Is this because I’m a lesbian??” after getting fired, and then immediately leaving the show.

Now let’s beat coronavirus so we can get production rolling on season 22, thanks, scientists!