Warning: The following feature contains SPOILERS for Batwoman, season 1, episode 10, “How Queer Everything Is Today!”
The first episode of Batwoman following the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event saw Kate Kane coming out to the public as a lesbian in her superheroic alter ego, and doing so with a little help from Supergirl. While Kate had several reasons for wanting both her personas to be out and proud, a noble motive ultimately informed her decision to take Batwoman out of the closet, despite fears it might lead people to connect Kate Kane and Batwoman.
The plot of Batwoman season 1, episode 10, “How Queer Everything Is Today!” pitted Batwoman against a hacker dubbed the Terrier, who hijacked a subway car and then threatened to reveal the secrets of everyone in the city if they didn’t crowd-fund $5 million within a few days. Batwoman deduced that the Terrier was Parker Torres; a high-school student, whose ex-girlfriend outed her against her will to her conservative parents after Parker refused to reveal her sexuality to them. Batwoman tried to empathize with the young hacker, but Parker wasn’t interested in getting a lecture on how her life would be better after high-school from someone who was “probably the cool girl in high school.”
Batwoman was given a chance to reach Parker later in the episode, after she was kidnapped by Alice, who had her own plans for the young hacker. Alice forced Batwoman to unmask, revealing herself to Parker as Kate Kane; one of the most famous faces in Gotham City and a local LGBTQ icon. Alice had intended for Parker to user her hacking skills to send the message that Kate Kane was Batwoman to every smart phone in Gotham City. Instead, Parker sent that message to Kate and Alice’s phones, while sending an SOS to everyone else in the city, informing the police as to Alice’s location.
Kate met with Parker later at her office at Wayne Enterprises and informed the young hacker that she’d signed her up for 150 hours of volunteer working scrubbing graffiti. She then offered Parker a shoulder to cry on if she needed to talk to anyone about her ex-girlfriend, her parents or anything else. Parker agreed and noted that Kate’s secret identity was safe with her, because she could never bring herself to reveal anyone’s secrets after having her own confidence betrayed. Parker added that she never in a million years would have guessed that Kate Kane was Batwoman and that when she took off her mask Batwoman would be “someone like me.”
The realization that she could use Batwoman as a symbol to give hope to not just Gotham City but to gay teens who needed a role model prompted Kate to take a bold step worthy of the Paragon of Courage. “We all wear a mask of some kind,” Kate noted, “But for people like us it’s not always about stopping a runaway train or disarming a bomb. Sometimes the best way to save someone is to be yourself.”
To that end, Batwoman cane out as a lesbian in the press. Though Kate discussed the action with Luke Fox, it was not until the end of the episode that we saw how it happened; through an exclusive interview in CatCo Magazine where Batwoman spoke with Kara Danvers, the secret identity of Supergirl. Not only was this a nice nod to the newly formed friendship between the World’s Finest heroes but also a subtle way to reinforce how things have changed in the newly reborn Arrowverse.
More: How Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths Ending Is Different To The Comics
