Yahoo News Justice Smith: Jurassic World actor praised after coming out as queer in support of Black Queer and Trans Lives
Jurassic World actor Justice Smith has been praised after coming out as queer in support of Black Queer Lives and Black Trans Lives.
Smith, 24, shared a powerful statement on an Instagram post featuring photos with the actor Nicholas L Ashe, who is best known for Queen Sugar.
He announced the news that they are a couple.
“We chanted ‘Black Trans Lives Matter,’ ‘Black Queer Lives Matter,’ ‘All Black Lives Matter’,” he told his followers.
“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.”
In 2018, Smith played a lead role in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and starred in 2019’s Pokémon film Detective Pikachu.
He called Ashe his “rock” and “guiding light through all of this”, adding: “I love you so much.”
Smith called upon people to “include Black Queer voices” in their “revolution”.
“If your revolution is okay with letting black trans people like Tony McDade slip through the cracks in order to solely liberate black cishet men, it is anti-black,” he said.
African American transgender McDade was was fatally shot by an officer of the Tallahassee Police Department on 27 May 2020.
Smith's fans praised the actor for his "beautiful" Instagram statement.
"Justice Smith just came out as a queer man with his boyfriend and I couldn't be more proud of him," one fans wrote, adding: "I love him and I wish him and his boyfriend all the love, happiness and positivity in this world."
Detective Pikachu's Justice Smith retroactively becoming one of the only LGBTQ leads of a $400m+ studio blockbuster. You can count em on one hand," another user pointed out.
YAAAAAASSSSS!!!! A HOLLYWOOD BLACK GAY COUPLE!!! We LOVE to see it!!! Justice Smith was in ‘The Get Down & Pokémon: Operation Pikachu’ & Nicholas Ashe plays ‘Micah’ on HBO’s ‘Queen Sugar’ 🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿😭😭😭 https://t.co/1gpA7mUFWk
— Billy Kaplan (@ACPCool)
Detective Pikachu's Justice Smith retroactively becoming one of the only LGBTQ leads of a $400m+ studio blockbuster. You can count em on one hand. https://t.co/L9eDmpCyCk
— Lucien (#BlackLivesMatter) (@revolucienary)
"YAAAAAASSSSS!!!! A HOLLYWOOD BLACK GAY COUPLE!!! We LOVE to see it!!!" another user wrote.
Smith was most recently seen in Netflix film All the Bright Places, and will return in sequel Jurassic World: Dominion.
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