Actor Justice Smith comes out as queer, calls for queer and trans inclusion in the Black Lives Matter movement

Justice Smith has a message for Black Lives Matter protesters: queer and trans lives must be included in the movement.

In an Instagram post on Friday night, the All the Bright Places star expressed solidarity with black queer and trans victims of police brutality, while coming out as queer himself, and revealing he is in a relationship with Queen Sugar star Nicholas Ashe.

“[Ashe] and I protested today in New Orleans. We chanted ‘Black Trans Lives Matter’ ‘Black Queer Lives Matter’ ‘All Black 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,” Smith wrote in the post. “I want to reiterate this sentiment: if your revolution does not include Black Queer voices, it is anti-black. If your revolution is okay with letting black trans people like #TonyMcDade slip through the cracks in order to solely liberate black cishet men, it is anti-black.”

McDade is a black transgender man who was killed by an officer of the Tallahassee Police Department on May 27. No one has yet been charged in the case, though a judge recently denied a motion to withhold the officer’s identity. A petition calling for justice for McDade currently has more than 1 million signatures.

“The revolution is not about appeal,” Smith continued in his post. “It is about demanding what should have been given to us from the beginning. What should have been given to black, queer, and trans individuals from the beginning. Which is the right to exist. To live and prosper in public. Without fear of persecution or threat of violence.”

Justice Smith and Nicholas Ashe

Addressing Ashe, he added, “You’ve been my rock and guiding light through all of this and I love you so much. I know that on the other side of this is change, though the fight is far from over.”

Nationwide protests have continued all week after the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer. The officer, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, has been charged with second-degree murder, with the other three officers on the scene at the time charged with aiding and abetting.

On Saturday, Smith addressed the reactions to his post. “yo tf i didn’t come out, y’all came in,” he tweeted.

yo tf i didn’t come out, y’all came in

— Justice Smith (@standup4justice) June 6, 2020