Reina Gossett, center, Barbara Smith, left, and Charlene Carruthers, sit on a panel titled Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives at the Creating Change Conference in Chicago in January.
Reina Gossett, center, Barbara Smith, left, and Charlene Carruthers, sit on a panel titled Black Feminism & the Movement for Black Lives at the Creating Change Conference in Chicago in January. Credit: www.reinagossett.com

AMHERST – New York activist and writer Reina Gossett has been tapped to speak at the Hampshire College Commencement.

Faculty members proposed Gossett because of her activism work at a time when students have raised issues around racism, transphobia and sexual violence, according to a release.

Gossett is the 2014 to 2016 activist in residence at Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women. Before that she was an organizer on a campaign with low-income LGBT and gender-nonconforming New Yorkers that stopped a jail from being built in the Bronx, according to the statement.

Gossett has also worked as membership director of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, where she aided efforts to end healthcare discrimination against low-income transgender and gender non-conforming people in New York.

Gossett is a 2009 Stonewall Community Foundation Honoree. She co-wrote, directed and produced a film with Sasha Wortzel titled “Happy Birthday, Marsha!”

Gossett was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Roxbury.