Graysen M. Ocasio is co-founder and co-executive director of Project OUT and serves on its board of directors.
He is also the Publisher of The Rainbow Times, New England’s Largest LGBTQ Newspaper. With Graysen at its helm, the publication has earned multiple awards, including a citation from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ House of Representatives for “10 years of providing inclusive news coverage of the LGBT Community.” He also earned the publication the Hispanic Black Gay Coalition’s Sylvia Rivera Community Award, Promise Place School’s “LGBT Champion in Media Award,” and Boston Latin@ Pride’s “Solidaridad/Solidarity” Award among many others.
Graysen was recently recognized by the City of Cambridge under Mayor E. Denise Simmons for his inclusive leadership. He has also lent a hand to Freedom for All Massachusetts, adding his voice to the Commonwealth’s initiative to keep public accommodations protections in place for the transgender community. The 2016 law to uphold transgender protections in Massachusetts is on the ballot and up for a popular vote later this year.
He currently serves as a member of the City of Salem’s No Place For Hate Committee and stepped up as Co-chair for the Community Engagement Subcommittee. Graysen is also an active board member for the Latino Leadership Coalition of Salem. Often at the political forefront, Graysen participates as a selected member of the City of Salem’s Mayoral Inclusion Committee and in various community-based programs to better assist marginalized communities. Graysen can often be found addressing college students and professionals at various conferences throughout the U.S. on inclusivity and LGBTQ issues in the mainstream and Latino community.
An activist and a veteran journalist whose published work, both in English and Spanish, span over two decades, Graysen also volunteers, as his time permits, as a certified medical interpreter. Last year, after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, he was part of an initiative, along with the City of Salem, named Salem Stands With Puerto Rico that collected approximately $10,000 to help the victims of the humanitarian crisis the island is still going through after the natural disaster.
Graysen is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Marylhurst University’s MBA program and holds a Bachelor’s in Journalism from Philadelphia’s Temple University.
Graysen can be contacted at graysen@projectout.org.