2020 was the most dangerous year in U.S. history for Black trans women.

The fight for Black trans liberation continues – every Thursday – at the Stonewall Inn in New York City.

The United States – a nation built on the fodder of race – has once again became intimately reacquainted with the conversation of racial reckoning in 2020.

Spurred by international attention during the global protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, an estimated 15 million to 26 million people participated in the 2020 Black Lives Matter in the United States – making it one of the largest movements in the country’s history.

A cornerstone of the Black Lives Matter movement is “Black Trans Lives Matter,” an explicit recognition – that even within a racial community of individuals who are chronically endangered via forms of systemic racism – the lives of Black trans people (specifically women) are more vulnerable to these forms of personal and institutional violence.

The central focus of the Black Trans Lives Matter platform is a desire to change the treatment of Black trans people (especially women) in America by individuals and government institutions.

Prominent activists Qween ‘Andy’ Jean and Joel Rivera arrived at the historic Stonewall Inn after the killing of a Black trans woman in Missouri and a Black trans man in Florida just weeks apart in the summer of 2020. It was a new beginning for the Stonewall Protests.

Jean and Rivera’s protests revolve around the Stonewall Inn, but have also taken place at Washington Square Park and through the streets of the city to underscore and bring visibility to the importance of trans rights and to condemn the ongoing killings of transgender people.

Filmed on Feb. 25, 2021 – the last Thursday of Black History Month – this immersive report invites the viewer to experience an evening at the Stonewall Protests in celebration of the African diaspora – and most importantly – the urgent call for Black trans liberation.

In the featured protest, Jean is the prominent speaker in a red dress.

Within the immersive, Jean speaks to the state of emergency within the Black trans community — urging the crowd to attend to the erasure of transgender and non-conforming individuals and to dismantle systems of white supremacy and policing that attempt to silence the community historically and in the aftermath of the 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.