Black Trans Femmes in the Arts (BTFA)

Growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, Jordyn Jay didn’t see representations of Black trans women and girls like herself. However, theater and the performing arts were a space where Jay had the freedom to be comfortable in her gender identity.

“It was a way for me to explore and play pretend, but also bring elements of my true self that weren’t allowed to be explored in the real world,” said Jay, who moved to New York to study theater at NYU. “The arts are what brought me here, but it’s the community that I found in Brooklyn especially that made me stay.”

As she was coming to terms with her identity, trans narratives were dominated by stories of trauma and isolation. In the ballrooms of Brooklyn, however, she saw “that there is life and vitality and creativity and hope within [trans] identity.”  She wanted to find ways to show up for her community as an artist but knew she had to hear directly from them first.

In 2019, Jay organized the Black Trans Femmes in the Arts meetup.

“I wanted to put things into action, but really, just giving people space to talk about those things was really healing for a lot of folks in the room,” Jay recalled. “There was a lot of conversation around just not feeling seen in art spaces, or being unsafe in places where you’re just trying to rehearse, or you’re trying to record as a hip hop artist. You’re facing transphobia and potentially violence.”

The meetup sparked the Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective (BTFA), supporting trans and nonbinary femme artists by fostering community and providing resources to thrive.

Whether it be through local balls or organizing events in Times Square and at the Brooklyn Museum, BTFA is committed to giving Black trans femme artists a platform to reach tens of thousands of people every year.

The collective’s Artist Development Programs serve up to 150 Black trans artists each year. Participants engage in workshops, guest lectures, networking events, and visits to art and cultural sites around New York City. These experiences are made by and for Black trans femmes, opening the doors to opportunities and resources that this community has been systematically denied for decades. These programs exemplify “how we’re able to give hope to a community and individuals who have not been able to hope for a long time,” added Jay.

The collective doesn’t measure success in numbers but in individual impact. Their mission-focused efforts can make it challenging to appeal to funders which is why Brooklyn Org’s support is invaluable.

“What I love about Brooklyn Org is that they did a site visit, and we got to sit down and talk…in the space where a lot of the work happens,” Jay said. BTFA Studios is a community co-working space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard where the collective produces new projects.

“Anyone who gets to come to the BTFA Studios…gets to see that and feel how much that means to the folks who are there,” said Jay. “And so I think Brooklyn Org really understood the gravity of our work, and I’m really grateful for that.”

Brooklyn Org’s funding will enable BTFA to expand. In the coming years, they plan to use BTFA Studios to produce legacy stories that showcase the resilience of trans elders. By telling these stories, BTFA aims to give hope to trans youth –– a demographic that has been the subject of political agendas in recent years.

Additionally, this funding will allow BTFA to expand its community aid program which offers assistance in obtaining gender-affirming healthcare, housing, food, and other necessities for Black trans femmes. “It’s part of the core of why I founded the organization,” Jay explained of the program. “When you are unhoused, when you are sick… or transitioning and don’t have healthcare…you cannot be in the highest capacity to create.”

This story was written by Kendall Ricks, one of Brooklyn Org’s January 2025 interns from Brown University’s Careers in the Common Good internship program.