Actor Justice Smith has come out as queer in a post calling for protesters not to forget Black queer and trans individuals as anti-racist protests continue across the country.
In the post, Smith reflected on his experience at a recent Black Lives Matter protest in New Orleans, where he noticed people in the crowd did not join in when when he and Ashe chanted “Black Trans Lives Matter” and “Black Queer Lives Matter.”
“As a black queer man myself, I was disappointed to see certain people eager to say Black Lives Matter, but hold their tongue when Trans/Queer was added,” he wrote alongside a video from the protest.
Smith went onto mention the police killing of Tony McDade, a Black transgender man, who was fatally shot last month in Tallahasse, Florida, making him at least the 12th American trans person to be killed in 2020, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Smith’s call for the rights of Black, queer and trans individuals to “live and prosper in public without fear of persecution or threat of violence” speaks to the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was created by three Black women, two of whom identify as queer.
