Reina Gossett is an activist, writer, community organizer, and the 2014-2016 Activist in Residence at BCRW. She is also the co-writer and co-director of the upcoming film “Happy Birthday, Marsha.” “Happy Birthday, Marsha” tells the story of Black trans artist and activist Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson in the hours before the 1969 Stonewall Riots. In January, Reina spoke with Barbara Smith and Charlene Carrutherson a panel on Black Feminism at the national LGBTQ conference Creating Change. Here are some highlights from the discussion: Gossett spoke about the reality of heightened violence for Black trans women. She stated that individuals must address anti-Black racism in discourse on transphobia, in addition to other issues such as the criminalization of sex work and HIV. She focused on the relationary aspects of many of these issues stating “we can’t get rid of gender norms [or the] gender binary…without getting rid of everything that constitutes it.”
Gossett also named the connections between anti-Black violence and the policing of queer and trans people. She called on activists to dismantle the “white, gay assimilationist push” for one-dimensional, singular issues. Liberation for queer people is not about “making prisons and ICE gay friendly.” Finally, Gossett addressed pinkwashing by the Israeli government. Pinkwashing is the branding strategies used by the Israeli government to market itself as LGBTQ-friendly and distract from its violent military occupation of Palestine.
“From June Jordan to James Baldwin, the struggle for Palestinian liberation has always been a Black feminist issue…We’ve always been there.” Most importantly, she states “there can’t be pride for some of us if there isn’t liberation for all of us.” 
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