VOICES OF COLOR: Miss Major Griffin-Gracy: Transgender Woman, Abolitionist, Activist, Mentor & Legend!
Pride Month wrapped up a few weeks ago, but I did not get this together for it in time. This Season we celebrate the life and legendary activism of Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (October 25, 1946 – October 13, 2025). Miss Major was a legendary Black transgender activist, abolitionist, and community elder whose foundational work over more than five decades deeply reshaped the modern queer and trans liberation movements.
A veteran of the pivotal 1969 Stonewall Uprising, she dedicated her life to uplifting the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender women of color, sex workers, and those navigating poverty. Her historic importance stems from her intersectional advocacy and grassroots leadership, which include serving as the executive director of the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) to combat the abuse of incarcerated trans individuals, providing critical care during the AIDS epidemic, and founding the House of GG to support emerging trans leaders in the American South. Lovingly known as "Mama" or "Mother" to generations of activists, Miss Major's legacy centers on community care, prison abolition, and an unyielding commitment to collective survival and human dignity.
Miss Major's story begins on the South Side of Chicago, where she was born. She was raised by her father, who worked as a postal worker, and her mother, who managed a beauty shop. She had two siblings, Cookie and Sargeant. Miss Major was assigned as male at birth. However, even at a young and early age, Miss Major felt like she was female. On days when her mother was out and away from home, Miss Major would dress in her mother's clothes so she could look and feel more like herself, a woman. She only ever did this in secret at first and presented as male in public. Around the age of 12 or 13, Miss Major came out to her family as trans. They reacted by enrolling her in a psychiatric treatment center and began taking her to church.
Exploring her gender identity came gradually for Miss Major. As a teenager, she met an older drag queen named Kitty. Kitty helped her dress up and taught her how to put on and apply makeup. It was in these moments that it solidified in Miss Major's mind that she was a transgender woman. She formed her name. She kept her given birth name of Major, and added Miss to the front. In honor of her mother, she hyphenated her last name with her mother's maiden name, Griffin-Gracy.
At this time in her life, the term "transgender" did not yet exist to label or describe members of this part of our queer community. Miss Major began identifying and describing herself as a transsexual. Her family had hoped this was just a phase, and many times tried to beat the "shim" out of her. During the late 1950s, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy publicly came out as a transsexual in Chicago. She recalled that while the era's drag balls required constant vigilance and self-defense, they also provided a space where expressing her identity simply "felt right," even before modern concepts of gender identity were fully understood.
Griffin-Gracy also noted the cultural impact of Christine Jorgensen’s highly publicized gender-affirming surgery in the 1950s. According to Griffin-Gracy, Jorgensen's transition triggered the rise of an underground black market for hormones, which she learned how to navigate and source from within Chicago.
At the age of 16, Miss Major enrolled in college. She was presenting as male at the time and therefore was living in male dormitories. Shortly after her arrival, she was outed by her roommate, who had found dresses in her wardrobe. She was aggressively ridiculed and then expelled from the school for wearing women's clothing. This happened at two more schools before she packed up what little she owned and moved to New York City in 1962.
Honey, there was no place like New York in the sixties––none!
And turning tricks was the thing to do! I relish that, you know."
In the early 1960's, Miss Major was working at a hospital morgue, performing in drag shows, and working dangerously as a trans prostitute to get by in New York City. Drag queens traveled to the theater dressed as men and only put on their makeup once they arrived. Being transgender in public could lead to violent attacks. She often noted how the girls (other trans sex workers) had to look out for each other because the police were not. Miss Major has said of her fellow sex worker and friend, Puppy, after Puppy's death was ruled a suicide by local authorities, "Puppy's murder made me aware that we were not safe or untouchable and that if someone does touch us, no one gives a shit. We only have each other. We always knew this, but now we need to take a step towards doing something about it. We girls decided that whenever we got into a car with someone, another girl would write down as much information as possible. We would try not to just lean into the car window, but get a guy to walk outside the car so that everyone could see him, so we all knew who he was if she didn't come back. That's how it started. Since no one was going to do it for us, we had to do it for ourselves." Miss Major credits these acts of communal protection as the origins of her activism.
This is where Miss Major met lifelong friend and queer iconic legend, Crystal Labeija of the House of Labeija. "At the time, we didn’t think of each other as legends. We were just young girls out there trying to have a good time. Crystal and I met on 34th and 8th Ave., getting ready to jump into the same car to turn a trick. He made a really sarcastic comment, saying, 'Well, I want the light-skinned girl.' I got pissed the fuck off, and so did she. We walked away and went to eat at Dunkin’ Donuts". Like so many young trans youth making a living on the streets, they turned to the community support of street "Houses" at the time. These houses served as home and community for so many orphaned queer youth in New York City. Many of these houses eventually became quite well known in the underground voguing Ballroom culture of the 1980's, including the House of Labeija. If you haven't seen Paris Is Burning yet, here's your sign.
Miss Major was often found at the Stonewall Inn, one of the very few gay bars that accepted trans people at the time. It "provided us, transwomen, with a nice place for social connection." She was present at the bar on the infamous and historic night of the Stonewall Riots in 1969. Miss Major has said of the Stonewall Riots, "This one night, though, everybody decided this time we weren't going to leave the bar. And shit just hit the fan. People put so much into seeing Stonewall as this symbol... We were fighting for our lives. They're still killing us; they're still not giving us the respect we're due for putting up with their shit all these years." She often reminded younger activists that it was trans women, sex workers, and street youth who made that history possible. She would often mention other notable queer activists to them, such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.
Shortly after this period of time, Miss Major was found guilty of robbery against one of her "johns" and was sentenced to prison for five years at the Clinton Correctional Facility at Dannemora. She received cruel treatment for presenting as trans in the prison system. She lived in the mental ward of the prison for years, where prison guards would shave her head and eyebrows and often made to walk around the prison naked in order to break her spirit. But it didn't. Dannemora is also where Miss Major made a life-altering encounter with Attica prison uprising leader and survivor, Frank "Big Black" Smith. Smith encouraged Major to learn about African-American history and politics, organizing, and the prison industrial complex. "I got politicized when I went to jail. I got five years for some stuff. There I met Frank ‘Big Black,’ and he turned me on to a lot of stuff that was really going on. I learned how they were using ‘Big Black’ to keep the prison quelled down. Through that, I became politicized. Since then, I have not stopped ranting and raving and complaining about all kinds of stuff! And I am going to continue to rant and rave and complain!"
In 1974, Miss Major was released from prison, where she spent sporadic periods of homelessness, receiving welfare, and only finding hormones via the black market for the next twenty years. Miss Major returned to New York City after being released. This is when she met and fell in love with drag performer Deborah Brown. It was the first time she had a relationship with a cisgender woman. "Well, I’m an ex-hooker. One man/woman? I don’t have time for that! I liked having long, engaging romantic affairs for maybe three to six months [at a time]. Then I would bring somebody else in." Deborah and Miss Major had a son, Christopher, in 1978 and moved to California. When their romantic relationship ended. Deborah returned to New York. Miss Major stayed in California
While Deborah continued to coparent from New York, Major struggled in California to raise her son. She attempted to join a support group for fathers but was not allowed to join due to her gender identity. However, Miss Major still remarks on her love of parenthood. This is likely what led her to eventually later work with Trans and other queer youth with the House of GG.
In 1988, Miss Major eventually took on a new partner, Joe Bob Michael. They settled in San Diego at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Miss Major continued to work as a drag performer and began guiding young trans and queer youth as she had once been guided by Kitty all those years ago. She earned the nickname "Mama Major." Miss Major came up close and personal with the epidemic when Joe Bob was diagnosed with AIDS. Joe Bob was a veteran, and Miss Major had fought for the local veterans' hospital to recognize that many veterans were dying from AIDS. Joe Bob sadly passed.
In 1995, Miss Major moved to San Francisco, where she began working in HIV prevention and outreach. She became an advocate and educator. She began to run the transgender drop-in center out of the Tenderloin AIDS Research Center. After learning that many homeless people felt uncomfortable seeking services at the center, Miss Major took her education and assistance into the streets. This began the street clinics that provided HIV prevention education out in the community. She was on the frontlines during this crisis, offering compassion and care in the absence of institutional support.
All this work eventually led her to join the Transgender Gender Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) in 2004. She would visit prisons on a bi-monthly basis, offering support to transgender, gender variante and intersex people, mentoring women, and working for systemic change. Her work also included helping coordinate access to legal and social services and testimony at the California State Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva about human rights violations in prisons.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy has been awarded and recognized many times for her courageous and selfless work within communities. In 2013, she campaigned for the wording on the Stonewall commemorative plaque to include "inclusive language to honor the sacrifice we as trans women displayed by taking back our power." In 2014, when she was honored as a community grand marshal for the San Francisco Pride Parade, she said, "We're finally getting some recognition. I'm proud it finally happened, and I'm alive to see it because a lot of my girlfriends haven't made it this far. I'm trying to get as many girls as possible together at the parade so people can see we're a force to be reckoned with; we're not going anywhere." In 2024, Miss Major received the National LGBTQ Task Force's Susan J. Hyde Award for Longevity in the Movement. Her acceptance speech was quite colorful and appropriate. In accepting the award, she wanted to make sure that she stood up for her community and for who she is by letting them know that they have been doing this to her since she was a kid and it hasn’t stopped. She felt that the only reason they don’t do it to her now is that, now, she's an older woman.
Miss Major visited Littlerock, Arkansas, for the premiere of MAJOR!, a documentary about her, her life, and her life's work. She decided to move to Little Rock, shortly after its premiere, with her partner, Beck, a transgender man. The couple adopted 3 children, and in 2021, Beck gave birth to their fifth child, Asiah.
She developed a property into an informal retreat, educational center, and support commune that she called the House of GG (Griffin-Gracy). This was to honor all the spaces created for street-bound queer and trans youth that found support in the "houses" of the 70s & 80s in New York City. The retreat includes a guest house, pool, hot tub, merry-go-round, various gardens, and over 80 palm trees. In 2023, she renamed it to Tilifi, an acronym for Telling It Like It Fuckin' Is.
At the age of 78, Miss Major died among family and friends at the House of GG in Little Rock on October 13, 2025.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy stands as a foundational, irreplaceable pillar of the modern transgender liberation movement whose fierce, community-rooted activism spanned more than five decades. From surviving the historic 1969 Stonewall Uprising to providing critical mutual aid during the devastating height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, she consistently dedicated her life to uplifting society's most marginalized. Her profound experiences with the criminal justice system directly fueled her passionate leadership, in which she fought tirelessly for incarcerated trans women of color. Her legacy is defined by an unyielding commitment to visibility, survival, and transformative love. Her revolutionary blueprint remains a guiding light for collective liberation and intersectional queer advocacy worldwide.
Thank you for spending time with Miss Major and me today, friends. I leave you all with the trailer for the documentary about her life. Perhaps this weekend would be a great time to watch it.
Enjoy! And Happy Pride!
***Miss Major Griffin-Gracy quotes and biographical information sourced from:
Wikipedia, "Miss Major Griffin-Gracy" for Women & the American Story, "Honoring Miss Major Griffin-Gracy’s Fight for Trans Justice" by Linds Cale for Every Queer, "TransVisionaries: How Miss Major Helped Spark the Modern Trans Movement" by Raquel Willis for Them Magazine, "'They are not including us. We have to stand up': Miss Major On Why The Fight To End State Violence Must Be Inclusive Of The Black Trans Community" by Jaimee A. Swift for Black Women Radicals
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