Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, often referred to as Miss Major, is a trans woman activist and community leader for transgender rights, with a particular focus on women of color. She serves as the Executive Director for the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project, which aims to assist transgender persons who are considered to be disproportionately incarcerated under a prison-industrial complex.^[3][4] Griffin-Gracy has participated in activism for a wide range of causes throughout her lifetime, including the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.

Early life

Griffin-Gracy was born in the South Side of Chicago on October 25, 1940,^[5] and was assigned male at birth.^[6] Griffin-Gracy participated in drag balls during her youth, and described her experience in Chicago in a 1998 interview:

[The drag balls] were phenomenal! It was like going to the Oscars show today. Everybody dressed up. Guys in tuxedos, queens in gowns that you would not believe— I mean, things they would have been working on all year...And the straight people would come and watch, they were different than the ones who come today. They just appreciated what was going on.^[7]

Griffin-Gracy also believed that, at the time, she and her peers were unaware they were questioning the gender they were assigned at birth, and noted that much of the contemporary terminology surrounding gender identities did not exist.^[7] Miss Major reported that she came out as a teenager in the late 1950s.^[7]

Activism work

New York City

Griffin-Gracy moved from Chicago to New York City. While some organizations, including gay bars in the city, would deny entry to trans women,^[8][9] she established herself within an LGBT community associated with the Stonewall Inn, a bar in Greenwich Village. She recounted, "We could go to Stonewall and everything would be fine, we didn't have to explain ourselves."^[8]

In 1969, Griffin-Gracy was in the Stonewall Inn meeting with a girlfriend when the bar was raided,^[8] an action which initiated the Stonewall riots.^[10] Griffin-Gracy was a leader in the riots,^[11] but was struck on her head by a police officer and was taken into custody. While in prison, she reported that a corrections officer broke her jaw.^[6] In 1973,^[12] she went to a gay rally in Central Park with fellow activist and trans woman Sylvia Rivera, where the audience booed Rivera offstage.^[6]

She had a five-year sentence at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora where she met Frank "Big Black" Smith who had participated in the Attica Correctional Facility riots of 1971.^[13] She was released from Dannemora in 1974.^[13]

California

Griffin-Gracy moved to San Diego in 1978 and organized community efforts and grassroots movements. She initially started with work at a local food bank and later provided direct services for trans women who were incarcerated, suffering from addiction, or homeless.^[8] While in San Diego, the AIDS epidemic struck the United States, and as a part of her service, Griffin-Gracy found herself providing additional healthcare and multiple funerals each week.^[8] Griffin-Gracy then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid 1990's where she served on multiple HIV/AIDS organizations including the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center.^[14][15]

In 2003, Griffin-Gracy began working at the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) shortly after it was founded by Alex Lee,^[3] although sometimes she is credited as the founder.^[16] She is the Executive Director of the project^[17] and leads efforts to support transgender women who have been imprisoned, particularly women of color.^[18] She is credited for leading direct service efforts and personalized care to incarcerated trans women of color with TGIJP in addition to her leadership in previous organizations.^[8]

General views

Griffin-Gracy views the state of being transgender or genderqueer as one of "living outside the law"^[19] due to constant rejection from mainstream audiences, particularly in pursuing job or education opportunities. She also argues that while many people with transgender and queer identities are not imprisoned, their identities and means of expression are policed through social behavior and state policies.^[19] She frequently cites the prison industrial complex as a major factor in why transgender people are incarcerated, specifically people of color and those with low income.^[19]

Griffin-Gracy has discussed the need for activism for transgender persons based in part on stories of discrimination from others. In the 1970s, a friend named Puppy, a Puerto Rican trans woman and sex worker, was found dead in her own apartment.^[6][8] Griffin-Gracy held that there was evidence of a murder, but authorities ruled her death a suicide.^[6] Griffin-Gracy described the event and its impact on her in an interview:

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...So I started looking out for myself … whenever we got into a car [we] would write down as much information as possible. We would try (to)...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.^[6]

Griffin-Gracy has frequently criticized the LGBT movement based on perceived exclusion of transgender persons from participation and positions of leadership, particularly those of color, with low income, or who have been previously imprisoned.^[6][8][20]

Documentary

A documentary titled Major! is in development and is planned to portray Griffin-Gracy's role as an activist and mentor in the transgender community since the 1960s.^[21][22]

References