Miss Major Griffin-Gracy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
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Miss Major at San Francisco Pride in 2014
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| Born | October 25, 1946 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
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| Occupation | Activist and author |
| Organization | Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project |
| Known for | Transgender rights activism |
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Notable work
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Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary |
| Children | 5 |
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (born October 25, 1946), often called Miss Major, is a famous American author and activist. An activist is someone who works hard to bring about political or social change. For many years, she has been a leader in the fight for transgender rights.
A transgender person is someone who knows they are a different gender from the one they were thought to be at birth. Miss Major is a Black trans woman who has dedicated her life to helping others. She was the first executive director of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, an organization that helps transgender people.
She has shared her life story in several books and interviews. In 2023, her own book, Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary, was published.
Contents
A Life of Activism
Early Life in Chicago
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy was born in Chicago in the 1940s. She grew up on the South Side of the city. Even as a young person, around age 12 or 13, she knew she was a girl.
In the late 1950s, she began to live as her true self. She found community at events where people could express themselves freely. She was inspired by Christine Jorgensen, one of the first well-known people to have gender-affirming surgery. This is a type of medical care that helps transgender people align their bodies with their gender identity.
Miss Major faced many challenges. She had to leave college and her family home because they did not accept her. To support herself, she became a performer. She chose the name "Griffin" to honor her mother. After facing difficulties in Chicago, she decided to move to New York City.
Becoming a Leader in New York
In New York, Miss Major found a welcoming place at the Stonewall Inn, a club that was a safe space for many trans women. At that time, many other places were not welcoming to them.
She was at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 during the famous Stonewall rebellion. This was a series of protests that became a major turning point for LGBT rights. Miss Major remembers it as a night when "everybody decided this time we weren't going to leave."
A very sad event pushed her to become an activist. Her friend, a trans woman named Puppy, died tragically. Miss Major believed her friend was harmed by someone else, but no one seemed to care. She said, "Puppy’s murder made me aware that we were not safe... We only have each other."
This made Miss Major and her friends create a system to protect one another. This was the beginning of her lifelong work as an activist. She realized that if no one else would help her community, they had to help themselves.
During this time, she also spent time in prison. There, she met a man named Frank "Big Black" Smith, who was a leader in the Attica prison protests of 1971. He became her mentor and taught her about African-American history, politics, and how to organize for change.
Fighting for Justice in California
In 1978, Miss Major moved to San Diego, California, and began working in community services. She helped at a food bank and provided direct support to trans women. During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, she worked in health care, helping many sick people.
In the 1990s, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2004, she joined the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) and soon became its executive director. TGIJP is an organization that supports transgender, gender-variant, and intersex people who are in prison or have been in prison.
Her work involved visiting prisons in California to help people get legal and social services. She also spoke to government officials and even the United Nations Human Rights Committee about the unfair treatment of trans people in prisons.
Miss Major often spoke about feeling that the wider LGBT movement sometimes forgot about people like her, especially trans people of color and those with low incomes. She worked to make sure their voices were heard. In 2014, she was honored as a community grand marshal for the San Francisco Pride Parade. She said, "We're finally getting some recognition... 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."
Later Life and Legacy
A Safe Haven in Arkansas
After a documentary about her life was shown in Little Rock, Arkansas, Miss Major decided to move there. She created a retreat center for trans people called Tilifi. The name is an acronym for "Telling It Like It F... Is." The center is a safe and peaceful place with a guest house, gardens, and a pool.
Sharing Her Story
Miss Major's life and work have been featured in documentaries.
- Major! (2015): This film shows her role as an activist and a mentor to many in the transgender community.
- Personal Things (2016): Another film that focuses on her life.
- Trans in Trumpland (2021): She was an executive producer for this docu-series.
In 2023, her memoir, Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary, was released. The book is made up of interviews where she talks about her life, from her childhood to her many years of activism. Reviewers have called the book an important way to learn from a leader and elder in the Black transgender community. The book was nominated for a 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction.
Honors and Awards
- 2013: Social Justice Sabbatical Award, Vanguard Public Foundation
- 2014: Bobbie Jean Baker Memorial Award, Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center
- 2014: Community Grand Marshal, San Francisco Pride Parade
- 2019: Acey Social Justice Award, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
- 2021: Women of the Year, The Advocate
Personal Life
Miss Major has five sons. Her first son was born in 1978. She later adopted three more sons. In 2021, she and her partner welcomed another son.
See Also
- Stormé DeLarverie
- Marsha P. Johnson
- Sylvia Rivera
- Frank 'Big' Black Smith
- Ceyenne Doroshow
- CeCe McDonald
