Tourmaline

In October 2017, Tourmaline alleged that filmmaker David France plagiarized her grant submission to the Arcus Foundation to create the documentary The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, which debuted on Netflix on October 6. Tourmaline and collaborator Sasha Wortzel were applying for a grant for financial assistance to release their short film, Happy Birthday, Marsha. This claim was supported by transgender activist Janet Mock. France denied the allegation. Independent investigations launched by both Jezebel and The Advocate exonerated France and concluded that Gossett's allegations against him were without merit. The debate has brought up questions around cultural appropriation, who owns archival footage, and what constitutes an original creative idea.

In January 2016, Tourmaline publicly supported a protest of the A Wider Bridge reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force's Creating Change conference in Chicago, which was intended to honor the leaders of Jerusalem Open House, the Israeli LGBTQ center. The protest, which turned violent, was characterized as anti-Semitic by opponents, although it featured a Shabbat service and was co-organized by the group Jewish Voice for Peace.

Tourmaline was featured in Brave Spaces: Perspectives on Faith and LGBT Justice (2015), which was produced by Marc Smolowitz and screened as a Human Rights Campaign event.

Tourmaline has made numerous films about trans activism. STAR People Are Beautiful People (2009), co-produced with Sasha Wortzel, documents the life and work of Sylvia Rivera and STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries). Her next work, also co-produced with Wortzel, Happy Birthday, Marsha!, explores the life of activist Marsha P. Johnson. Trans women played every major role in the film and queer and trans activists volunteered at the event.

Tourmaline moved to New York City for college in 2002 and has lived there ever since.

Tourmaline (born July 20, 1983; formerly known as Reina Gossett) is an activist, filmmaker and writer based in New York City, currently the 2016–2018 Activist-in-Residence at Barnard Center for Research on Women. She is a transgender woman who identifies as queer. Tourmaline is most notable for her work in transgender activism and economic justice, through her work with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Critical Resistance and Queers for Economic Justice. In 2017, she edited the book Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, with co-editors Eric A. Stanley and Johanna Burton. The book is part of a series called Critical Anthologies in Art and Culture by MIT Press.