…Seven of Nine and Rafi got their own command. Stamets and Culber remained a loving couple throughout (apart from Culver’s unfortunate temporary death) and adopted a young enby who had their own growth throughout the series while everyone respected their pronouns. Nurse Chapel is a bi woman who withdrew her application to a fellowship at the Vulcan Science Council, essentially telling them “your fellowship ain’t ready for me”.
I wouldn’t consider their queer identities to be conveniences or their character arcs to be simple plot points by any stretch of the imagination. retconning Sulu as gay? Maybe. Agender computer genius aliens stealing the ship or a third-gender alien’s romantic encounter with Riker? Okay, sure.
But the latest Trek serieses put queer people in space and haven’t been using them as lip service or exclusively as minor supporting characters. They’ve been full-fledged characters whose queer identities the audience was been made aware of and shown that, in the future, the bigots lose because their queerness doesn’t define them…it is just a part of who they are. They are masters of their own destinies.
(That being said, as much as I hate the lip service stuff, I do wish they’d have thrown us a bone with Detmer and Owosekun because c’mon…enough queerbaiting already.)