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 Ashe, who is best known for TV series Queen Sugar, announcing 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,” Smith said.
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 fan 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!!!” another user wrote.
In 2018, Smith played a lead role in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and starred in 2019’s Pokémon film Detective Pikachu.
Smith was most recently seen in Netflix film All the Bright Places and will return for more Jurassic World in 2021 sequel Dominion.
Following the former’s release, viewers urged Netflix to add a trigger warning to the beginning of the film.
