Brian Michael Smith

Brian Michael Smith is an American trans actor and LGBTQ+ advocate who publicly came out as transgender in 2017, the same year his role on Queen Sugar (2016) introduced one of television's first Black trans masc characters. He made network television history as the first openly Black trans man cast as a series regular, playing firefighter Paul Strickland on 9-1-1: Lone Star (2020). He has also appeared in The L Word: Generation Q (2019) and the documentary Disclosure (2020), which examines the history of transgender representation in Hollywood. A graduate of Kent State University, Smith has been a consistent advocate for authentic transgender representation on and off screen, and remains one of the most visible trans men in American mainstream television.