Rest in Power, Miss Major
Honoring a lifetime of Black trans activism.
Miss Major in the San Francisco Pride parade, June 2014. Photo by Quinn Dombrowski, CC BY-SA 2.0.
by Pax Ahimsa Gethen
On October 13, the trans community lost a beloved leader with the passing of Miss Major Griffin-Gracy at the age of 78. A Black trans activist, Miss Major served as a community organizer for over 50 years, from participating in the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969 to founding a trans sanctuary in Arkansas in 2023.
Born and raised in Chicago, Major came out as trans in the 1950s, and began performing in the Jewel Box Revue drag show. She then moved to New York City, befriending Stonewall veteran Stormé DeLarverie, who emceed the Revue. Major and other young trans women were educated and protected by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, trans leaders of color who tried to unite the community despite being booed and heckled by cis gay people.
As a Black trans woman doing sex work in New York, Major was frequently harassed by police, and spent several years in prison. Her experience influenced her advocacy for prison abolition, and her later leadership of the Transgender, Gender-Variant, and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP). The San Francisco-based nonprofit was recently renamed to the Miss Major Alexander L. Lee TGIJP Black Trans Cultural Center in honor of Major and founding director Alexander Lee.
Among the many other jobs she held, Major worked with several organizations providing care for people living with HIV and AIDS. For her dedicated service, she was honored as Community Grand Marshal of San Francisco Pride in 2014. However, she spoke out against police and corporate presence at Pride, and refused to continue participating in such events following the 50th anniversary of Stonewall in 2019.
Major spent her final years in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she founded a community space for trans and gender non-conforming people. Initially named House of gg, after her “Griffin-Gracy” initials, she later renamed the organization to Tilifi, standing for “Telling It Like It Fuckin’ Is”.
Major related these and other life experiences in unapologetic, vivid detail to co-author Toshio Meronek in the 2023 book Miss Major Speaks, which I reviewed for TransWrites prior to release. She was also featured in the 2016 documentary Major!, which won numerous awards.
The legacy of Miss Major lives on in the many activists – trans women in particular – that she mentored, mothered, and influenced. These include Janetta Johnson, current TGIJP director and Transgender District co-founder; Ms Billie Cooper, trans activist and celebrated elder; Cecilia Chung, advocate for social justice and the health of LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS-affected community members; Raquel Willis, writer, editor, and community organizer; and CeCe McDonald, trans activist featured in the documentary Free CeCe.
Pax Ahimsa Gethen (they/them) is a queer Black trans writer and editor. They live in San Francisco with their spouse Ziggy.