Trans Art Under Attack

About this episode

This episode discusses the controversy surrounding Amy Sherald's painting and its implications for trans visibility in art.

This week, we explore the controversy surrounding Amy Sherald’s painting Trans Forming Liberty , which depicts a Black trans woman posing as the Statue of Liberty. In the summer of 2025, Amy Sherald canceled her highly anticipated and historic exhibition, American Sublime , at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery after Sherald said she faced pressure from museum officials to remove Trans Forming Liberty and show a video of it instead. Rather than compromise, Sherald pulled the show and brought American Sublime to the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it became the museum’s most attended exhibition since 2000, drawing more than 80,000 visitors. Explaining her decision, Sherald said, “The video would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility, and I was opposed to that being a part of the American Sublime narrative.” First, we hear from Grace Byron, an art critic who wrote about the chilling effect of Trump’s anti-trans executive orders on trans artists in a piece for the New Yorker called “The War on Trans Art.”  Then, we hear from the model depicted in Trans Forming Liberty , Arewà Basit, who is also an artist herself. This week’s Trans Joy features…

People in this episode

Host: Imara Jones

Guests: Grace Byron, Arewà Basit

Topics covered

• trans art
• controversy
• visibility
• exhibitions
• censorship
• trans joy

Keywords

• trans art
• Amy Sherald
• exhibition
• trans visibility
• censorship
• Baltimore Museum of Art
• Smithsonian

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: TransLash Media, Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Baltimore Museum of Art

Books & works: Trans Forming Liberty, American Sublime, The War on Trans Art

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