MIDTOWN, NY — Tommy Playboy, a burgeoning star in the modeling world and an activist known as “a force” in the transgender community, has been identified as the person fatally struck by a train in Midtown last weekend. She was 23.
“Your existence is your art, and Tommy was a profound mover, an amazing voguer,” said friend, fellow trans model and activist Gia Love. “She should have been on the cover of Vogue.”
Thomas Blackwell was identified this week as the person found unconscious on northbound 2 train subway tracks near West 42nd Street Saturday night, police said.
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Blackwell died at the height of a career that saw her starring in runway shows, videos and campaigns for brands such as Telfar, Geoffrey Mac, Raleigh Workshop and Jane Wade.
Just days ago, Blackwell attended an event at the Metropolitan Museum hosted by Korean luxury brand Sulwhasoo.
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The model posed with long platinum hair, long white fingernails, a diamond and sapphire choker, a long-sleeved black sequined dress and oversized sunglasses.
Away from the cameras, Blackwell was known as a “community trailblazer,” dedicated to a little sister and nephew to whom she was a guardian. She lived in The Bronx.
Friends this week quickly took to social media to memorialize and honor Blackwell, writing, “the talent that Tommy was born with was once in a generation kind of talent.”
Blackwell first moved to New York just a few years ago and quickly became known for her fierce looks and commitment to family and community, said Love.
According to Love, Blackwell was “a bundle of joy and an incredible spirit that definitely uplifted me and made me laugh every time I saw her.”
She said that Blackwell had a nickname for her: Jeez Louise.
“I love nicknames — I thought that was really cute,” Love said.
Love knew of the “light and joy” Blackwell brought to the community before the pair ever became friends, she said.
Blackwell helped hype up Love before her big debut at her first fashion week runway show — and continued to do so every time they worked together.
For Love, Blackwell exemplified the struggle to find “space to be appreciated and accepted” in the world as someone from a marginalized community, she said.
“You always just have to be resilient and fight to be seen,” Love said. “But all the projects that I worked on with Tommy was like, really an elevation of the experience.”
Love, also involved in the trans community, runs the Celebration of Black Trans Women Cookout, an event she’s held for the last few years in Bed-Stuy’s Herbert Von King Park.
Blackwell always made an appearance, Love said.
“Tommy always showed up for the community,” Love said, especially during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Love said that by “showing up in her fullness and queerness,” Blackwell provided “an intersectional conversation to that experience,” along with light and laughter.
Blackwell’s friend hopes the community will remember her as the nation faces an ongoing culture war and “things that don’t allow us to have peace and serenity.”
“We can’t keep being to constantly traumatized as we’re trying to navigate the difficult world that we live in, because it’s difficult for everyone,” Love said.
“We, in the spirit of a person like Tommy, keep going, and keep transforming,” Love said. “We — and they — deserve a space to also be and feel loved.”
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