LGBTQ+

Joy can be a fleeting emotion. Perhaps for this reason I’ve relished the opportunity to capture moments of Black joy—Black trans joy, Black queer joy—through my drawing project Activist Portrait Series. I’ve been able to draw, larger than life, moments of belly laughter, of teeth exposed, torsos bent in wriggling joy. I’ve been thinking a lot about joy this year—as we have witnessed a rising tide of right-wing backlash to any wins we have had since the uprisings of 2020 around racial justice and queer justice. How do we hold on to joy in moments when lawmakers, judges and those who uphold the laws, and everyday citizens who push for such legislation, seem hell-bent on our despair and disappearance? To better understand the role of joy in these moments of strife and unrest, I turned, as I always do, to Black queer and trans artists to help me make sense of the now.