TL;DR

• Trans civil rights icon Miss Major Griffin-Gracy has passed away at 78.
• For over 50 years, she fought for the safety, dignity, and liberation of trans people, especially Black trans women and incarcerated individuals.
• From Stonewall to founding the House of GG, her activism shaped modern queer resistance.
• Advocates and leaders across the movement mourn her passing and celebrate her fierce, loving, and revolutionary spirit.
• Her legacy remains foundational to LGBTQ liberation and continues to guide the fight for trans justice today.

MISS MAJOR REMEMBERED: A MOTHER OF THE MOVEMENT WHO REFUSED TO LET US BREAK

A revolutionary from the moment she arrived

The world feels heavier this week. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy—beloved mother, mentor, warrior, and lighthouse to generations of queer and trans people—has passed at age 78. And while she leaves behind a legacy impossible to summarize in a single article, the stories being shared make one truth undeniable: she helped build the world queer and trans people fight to survive in today.

Born in Chicago and later landing in New York as a young trans woman, Miss Major found community instantly—six floors of trans girls in the building she moved into on 42nd Street. “It was fabulous,” she once recalled. “There were so many of us that it was a full life.” That joy, that fullness, that unapologetic thriving would become hallmarks of her life’s work.

She lived through New York’s anti-cross-dressing laws, saw firsthand the brutality queer people faced, and—yes—was at Stonewall the night the riots erupted. In classic Miss Major fashion, she told the story with grit and humor: “I spit in some guy’s face, and he knocked me out… other than that, I don’t remember anything.”

Her life was never sanitized, never easy, and never divorced from the violence trans women—especially Black trans women—have always faced. After a robbery arrest, she endured years in men’s prisons and mental institutions, surviving mistreatment that would have crushed someone with less fire. Instead, she emerged more determined than ever to fight for those abandoned by every system meant to help them.

A builder of community, a mother to many

Miss Major didn’t just fight. She nurtured. She created sanctuaries.

She mentored people living with HIV/AIDS in the early ’80s, helped run San Francisco’s first mobile needle exchange, and advocated fiercely for trans incarcerated people—long before politicians even learned the phrase “criminal justice reform.”

In 2005, she joined the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), becoming its first executive director. Under her leadership, TGIJP became a lifeline for trans people behind bars and a force for legal reform. And in 2019, she founded the House of GG, a revolutionary Southern-based retreat and resource hub dedicated to healing and empowering trans people.

Muriel Tarver of House of GG captured her best:
“Her love was as vast and enduring as the universe.”

Major wasn’t just a leader. She was a mother figure, an auntie, a keeper of community, a builder of bridges where others burned them.

A legacy of liberation—and love

For activists like Naiymah Sanchez, Miss Major offered something priceless: care shaped by lived experience. “She embodied the spirit of community healing,” Sanchez said, bringing history and tenderness in equal measure.

Kierra Johnson of the National LGBTQ Task Force put it plainly:
“There will never be another like her.”

Miss Major wasn’t only a giant in the movement—she was foundational to it. A force who told the truth, demanded dignity, and showed fierce generosity to anyone she claimed as family.

Her presence at 2024’s NYC Pride parade as grand marshal was a powerful reminder: even in her later years, she remained a symbol of community strength, resistance, and joy.

Why Miss Major’s legacy matters now more than ever

We lose her at a time when trans rights are under coordinated attack—when bans, book censorship, and criminalization efforts sweep the country. But Miss Major taught us what to do in these moments.

She taught us to spit in the face of injustice—figuratively, please—take the hit, get back up, and keep fighting.
She taught us that community saves lives.
She taught us that joy is resistance.
She taught us that love is political.

Her work lifted those society tried to bury. Her voice fortified those too tired to shout. Her legacy is a roadmap for every young trans person told they don’t belong—and a reminder that they absolutely do.

Miss Major lit the path. It’s on us to keep it burning.

A mother of the movement has gone home, but the movement she raised? It’s louder, stronger, and more unshakeable because she walked first.