After The CW announced that Ruby Rose (Orange is the New Black) had been cast as Batwoman in the annual DC superhero crossover event, the actress took to Instagram to call the role “a childhood dream.”
“The Bat is out of the bag and I am beyond thrilled and honored,” Rose wrote on Instagram. “I’m also an emotional wreck.. because this is a childhood dream. This is something I would have died to have seen on TV when I was a young member of the LGBT community who never felt represented on tv and felt alone and different.
Thank you everyone. Thank you god.”
Batwoman, aka Kate Kane, first appeared in Detective Comics in 1956. The character was reinvented as a Jewish lesbian for the DC Comics’ New 52 series, becoming one of DC’s first openly gay characters. Representation is clearly important to Rose, a genderfluid lesbian and activist for the LBGTQ community herself.
Both Arrow and The Flash have previously teased that Gotham City does exist within the Arrow-verse, and this news seals the deal. The CW’s next annual event is set to air in December 2018. If the Batwoman pilot is ordered to series, it will air sometime in 2019. Just don’t expect Batman to show up.