BRIAN MICHAEL SMITH

He/Him

“Brian Michael Smith is an American actor and LGBT advocate. He is known for playing Paul Strickland in 9-1-1: Lone Star. He discovered the importance of community and visibility while he worked with LGBT youth at the Manhattan LGBT Center. On NBC News, Smith said: “I worked with young people and I just saw how important it was for young LGBT people, no matter where they were in their experience, to see what is down the road for them.” Since Queen Sugar, Smith has used his visibility and platforms to advocate for better trans representation in television and film and to encourage LGBTQ youth to create their own media. Smith publicly revealed he was transgender in 2017. In 2018, he was a special guest and panelist at the University of Michigan’s My Life, My Story! Centering the Lives of Trans Voices event. During NYC Pride in 2018 he participated in the GLAAD Game Changers Panel to discuss the changing landscape of transgender representation in television. In August 2018, Smith joined [other trans voices in] Variety magazine’s first Transgender in Hollywood Roundtable. The hour-long roundtable was released in conjunction with the August 7 print issue dedicated to trans representation and discrimination within Hollywood. During the discussion, Smith said: “We are artists and we want to create things and we want to have choice and our visibility should not cost us that choice.” In addition to public speaking, he continues to advocate through his art and to support trans narratives in television and film by participating in projects such as Sam Feder’s documentary, Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen released in 2020, by Netflix. In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named him among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people”. In July 2021, Smith joined the Human Rights Campaign’s Board of Director, the nation’s largest LGBT-interest activist organization, to continue to advocate for social and legislative equality and protections for LGBTQ+ people.” [Source]

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