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Lights, cameras and a protest marked the opening night of the film "Ticked Off Trannies with Knives."

"It basically strips trans women of their identities and invalidates them and strips them of their human rights," said Ashley Love of Media Advocates Giving Equality to Trans People.

Creator Israel Luna calls the film empowering and describes it as a revenge fantasy, in which the transgender women characters turn the tables on their attackers. He says he penned the film out of frustration from reading articles about hate crimes against transgender women.

"This was my way of expressing my thoughts on hate crime and what's going on," Luna said. "I created these characters in my head. It's a completely fictional piece, it's not a documentary and its not meant to be. It's a fun sometimes campy sometimes serious sometimes scary film."

Luna says the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, had originally supported his film and was surprised when it later issued a call to action, urging its removal from the Tribeca Film Festival.

Detractors took exception with Luna's portrayal of transgender women and his use of the word "trannies" in the title, which some in the community find offensive.

"I sort of associated the word trannies with something like queer was a few years ago, where it was somewhat offensive but we took it back and made it ours. Because a word only has power when you give it power," Luna said. "I can understand GLAAD or anyone else disagreeing with the content or being offended or not offended, loving it or hating it, but it was disheartening to know that GLAAD had chose to take the stance of censorship, that's how I feel."

NY1 reached out to GLAAD who had initially granted the station interview and then later rescinded.

The film's star, Krystal Summers, says she has her own sense of identity.

"It's our word. So some girls like to use it some other girls don't," Summers said. "I prefer to be referred to as a woman period. It's just a word to me, I'm kind of indifferent."

Still, Luna has since blurred out a couple of letters in "trannies" in some of the marketing material but hopes his feelings on hate crimes remains clear.