I conceptualized BTFA in response to the lack of representation of Black trans femmes in art history, contemporary art spaces, and art scholarship, because I understood that lack of representation as a symptom of a greater lack of resources and opportunities.

To begin to address this issue,  I organized a Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Meetup in September of 2019 to connect with other Black trans femmes in the arts, understand the obstacles they were facing, and organize towards erasing them. In this first small meetup, it became abundantly clear how necessary it was for Black trans femmes to have a community within the arts to share resources, expertise and talents.

Two months later, I organized BTFA’s first Open Mic Night, which featured performances by 8 Black trans femme artists, to showcase the talent in the community and officially launch the BTFA Collective.

At the beginning of 2020, BTFA began to build a platform on social media through highlighting members of the collective and interviewing well-known Black trans femme artists on our Instagram.

On June 2nd, BTFA announced the Black Trans Protesters’ Emergency Fund, in collaboration with The Okra Project, For the Gworls, and Black Trans Travel Fund, to protect Black trans protestors in preparation for a rally in New York City honoring the lives of Nina Pop and Tony McDade.

With the world’s eyes on the Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQ+ community exploring ways to celebrate Pride virtually, BTFA became a global phenomenon overnight as our message was spread by celebrities and major publications.

Now, a little more than a year after that first meetup, BTFA is reaching Black trans femmes and impacting them in spaces and ways that I never imagined.

We are continuing to develop our public programming, both virtually and in-person, when it is safe, providing mutual aid to Black trans folks, and producing projects led by Black trans femme artists in New York City.

In all of this success and joy, I also hold space to mourn the lives we lost and the violence we endured as a community that made folks pay attention.

We are organizing and building as a community, so that violence and trauma are no longer our only paths to recognition, while de-centering and destabilizing institutions and systems that have not offered us any other way.

We are mobilizing our resources to offer paths of hope, resistance and imagination.

BTFA envisions a world where Black trans femmes are able to create without limitations.

- Jordyn Jay, Founder and Executive Director