Hamilton LGBTQ community members are buzzing with news that "Orange is the New Black" star Laverne Cox will visit the city in the spring.

Cox, a transgender actor who plays a transgender character in the wildly popular Netflix show, is scheduled for a speaking engagement at Mohawk College on March 23.

"People are super excited she's coming," says Erin Crickett, public education co-ordinator with SACHA, the Sexual Assault Centre for Hamilton and Area.

"She's a really big deal … to be on the cover of Time (magazine) and nominated for an Emmy is really validating for trans people."

SACHA and The Well (LGBTQ Community Wellness Centre of Hamilton) partnered with Mohawk College's Social Inc. club, which invited her, to bring Cox here.

Crickett calls Cox "a real hero to the trans community. There's not only the acting, but her activism against violence against trans and (over) trans having been left out of the gay rights movement."

The idea to bring in Cox, who has frequent speaking engagements at colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada, came from Social Inc.

"We were looking for a way to support trans students and staff," says Marco Felvus, Social Inc.'s founder and co-ordinator — and an instructor at the college. "We are really big fans" of "Orange is the New Black."

Felvus said the regulars at Social Inc. were really impressed with Cox, not only because she identifies as trans and plays the role of a trans woman on the show — but because she is also "down to earth and students pick up on it right away. She's real."

Poe Liberado, Halton Pride chair, said Cox "is not just an LGBTQ icon, but a black trans icon — a community that is extremely marginalized."

Social Inc. is a drop-in centre at the college that supports marginalized people and gives them a positive space to hang out, says Felvus. It's also a place to study, socialize or discuss issues and it provides education and workshops.

About 1,200 students use Social Inc., he said.

Cox, whose speaking fee is $30,000, will present "Ain't I a Woman: My Journey to Womanhood." It's about her life, starting as a male growing up in a Christian family in Alabama and eventually realizing she identified as a woman.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Cox, an activist for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and others' rights, is the first transgender woman to be on the cover of Time Magazine and to be nominated for an Emmy. She was also named Glamour magazine's 2014 Woman of the Year.

Cox speaks on March 23 at 7:30 p.m. at the McIntyre Performing Arts Centre at Mohawk's Fennell campus. For tickets, visit mohawkcollege.ca/alumni or email marco.felvus@mohawkcollege.ca