Photos by Laurel Golio

Becca Blackwell was sitting at Cheryls Global Soul, a venerable soul food restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Blackwell, who is trans and uses they/them pronouns, had just left their CrossFit gym a few blocks away when, right outside, a man started talking to them.

He was this real old-school New Yorker, Italian guy, ranting about the neighborhood and how it changed, using all kinds of whoa! words. At the table, Blackwell transformed into character, imitating him: I remember when the blanks and the blanks ran around here. You know who owns this building? A Jew. Man, theyre gonna rape us, those Jews. Then the markets gonna crash.

An awestruck smile crept over Blackwells face. To this man, they had passed, not only as a straight, cis male, but also as a racist and anti-Semite. Like most queer New Yorkers of a certain age, the 40-something Blackwell has seen everything, heard everything, been called everything, and keeps their sanity intact with a twisted sense of humor. And here I thought that Brooklyn had lost its old-school charm.

Three days before, Blackwell had just finished an acclaimed run of the play Hurricane Diane at the New York Theater Workshop, by playwright Madeleine George. The off-Broadway production introduced larger audiences to Blackwells acting skills their range, their magnetic stage presence, their uncanny ability to flip from humor to pathos in a second as if they have one of those comedy/tragedy masks in their back pocket.