Heroes of Stonewall: Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

Last June, as you may recall, I did a whole series on the Heroes of Stonewall. Obviously, it was a massive riot, I couldn’t cover everyone who was there in just a month. I left out someone incredibly important (several someones), and I can’t think of a better time to cover the story of another transgender person of color who heroically led us at the Stonewall Riots, and afterwards, than right now — when the Trump administration is attacking the healthcare rights of transgender people.

Miss Major — can’t find a date for it but this is such a fantastic picture

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy was born in Chicago on October 25, 1940 in the south side of Chicago at St. Luke’s Hospital. She was assigned to the male gender at birth. It didn’t last too long — while she was still fairly young, she discovered the drag ball scene and began participating regularly. She later explained that, without the terminology we have today existing, she did not realize that she and her peers were questioning their gender identities. But they were, and Miss Major was fairly open about it. Her parents attempted to curb this, but eventually just kicked her out.

Afterwards, she was homelessness — getting by as best she could through sex work and the occasional theft. She transitioned, using hormones she purchased on the black market — something that became a booming business following the very public transition of Christine Jorgensen. She briefly had a job as a secretary for the Mattachine Society, but even that didn’t last too long.

After a run in with the law, and a six month bout in a mental institution, Miss Major moved to New York City. She became a performer at the famous Jewel Box Revue, as well as the Cherries and the Powder Puff Revue. (As an aside, I’m definitely a 90’s kid because I definitely first thought that was “Powerpuff” but it isn’t.) During these years she experimented with a handful of names, but settled on the one her parents had given her: Major. She simply added the word “Miss” in front of it.

Although many of the gay bars would not let her in, Miss Major became a frequent customer at the Stonewall Inn — probably at least in part because of her and Stormé DeLarverie‘s shared association with the Jewel Box Revue. She was there on the night of June 27, 1969 and stayed late enough to be present when the police raided the bar. She participated in the rioting on that first night, until she spit in the face off one of the police officers — he responded by knocking her out. She awoke the next day in a prison cell. While she was in police custody, her jaw was broken.

After the riot, Miss Major was deeply changed by the murder of a Puerto Rican transgender friend of hers known as Puppy. Despite plenty of evidence, the police ruled the murder was a suicide. She realized that transgender women of New York could not depend on anyone but each other — she began to build a network so that they could help protect each other. This was especially true of sex workers, who started trying to get their “johns” to exit the cars so that all of the girls could see them — just in case a girl never came back from a job.

She was arrested in 1970 for burglary after a safe-breaking job went wrong, and spent four years at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York. He had a great deal of respect for Miss Major, and her gender identity, and he talked to her about how she could help her community. She spent a good amount of time in solitary confinement — she was imprisoned with men, and every time a fight broke out between her and any other inmate, she was the one who was punished. She was paroled twice — but both times the parole was revoked when her parole officer reported her for deviant behavior (once was for adopting a more feminine appearance by shaving her face, and the second time was for “entering a deviant bar.”) While incarcerated, she communicated regularly with Frank “Big Black” Smith — who had been in charge of security at the Attica Correctional Facility Riots of 1971. When she was finally released in 1974, she took those lessons to heart.

In 1978, Miss Major’s long-time girlfriend gave birth to their son Christopher. Miss Major decided the life she’d built in New York was not one well-suited for raising a child, she secured sole custody of Christopher and moved to San Diego. She would eventually adopted three other boys — runaways she met at a park. This was the start of a growing chosen family that still rallies around Miss Major to this day. She started working at a food bank and attempted to help transgender people who were in prison or recovering from addiction, but as the AIDS epidemic began to ravage the queer community of California, Miss Major turned her attention to helping provide healthcare and performing funerals. The silver lining for the epidemic, Miss Major later recalled, was that many transgender people — especially women — were able to find legitimate, legal jobs for the first time, even if that job was the heartbreaking task of providing healthcare to doomed queer people no one else wanted to touch.

Miss Major in the 90s

In the mid 90’s, Miss Major moved to San Francisco. She continued her HIV/AIDS activism, including serving with the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center (TARC). As part of that organization, she ensured they had a refrigerator available so that homeless people could store food and medications at the center. She fought for them to acquire a washing machine and a dryer so homeless people in the community could do their laundry.

In 2003, Miss Major — who’s activism was returning more to its original focus on incarcerated transgender people — joined the newly founded Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGI Justice Project), and became the Executive Director. In this position, she is one of an estimated five people in the United States that is working full time towards equal transgender rights in prison. She has testified about human rights violations towards transgender people in prisons before both the California State Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva. One particular focus of her activism is on the healthcare that transgender inmates receive — they are sometimes denied everything from hormones to routine medical examinations. But, as she notes, transgender inmates face abuse in almost every aspect of prison life, and are overrepresented in prison populations (where they are typically housed with the incorrect gender).

Miss Major, Grand Marshall at San Francisco Pride

She has decried the gay rights movement for ignoring the plight of transgender people as they fought for equality — a sentiment that was shared deeply by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. (And frankly, shared by me too. It’s hard to argue with.) But Miss Major herself has continued to fight tirelessly for those the rest of society wanted to ignore. She’s known to have said: “Just because there’s this umbrella, LGBT, we’re all grouped together. But guess what? Someone poked a hole in the umbrella and the girls are still getting wet.”

And recently, although those sentiments still largely hold true, Miss Major herself has finally been getting attention for her decades of work. In 2014, Miss Major was made the Grand Marshall of the San Francisco Pride Parade. In 2015, the documentary MAJOR! was released, following Miss Major’s life as an activist.

More recently, in 2018 Miss Major has relocated from California to Little Rock, Arkansas. There, she has founded the Griffin-Gracy Historical Retreat and Educational Center — also known the House of GG. On July 4, 2019 Miss Major suffered a stroke — but survived and is recovering well enough that she has been engaged in Black Lives Matters protests within the past month according to her Instagram. If you want to help with her continued recovery or with her continued activisim for transgender and gender non-conforming people, a website has been set up for donations.

Miss Major and her daughter Janetta Johnson

While articles about Miss Major’s life and activism are plentiful, they all have anecdotes of Miss Major saving lives by simply being there, lending an ear, or offering advice and a good book. It’s little wonder so many have rallied around her, now often calling her “Mama Major” or “Grandma Major.” Janet Mock, a writer, director, and producer — one of the creators of the TV show Pose, once said, “Without Miss Major’s contributions and work, I would not exist.” There are countless transgender people in this country who say the same. That’s a tremendous legacy, but when asked what she hoped her legacy would be in a 2018 interview she said: “If ain’t right, fucking fix it, whatever it takes.”

And if that’s not a mantra for the whole world to adopt, I don’t know what is.

(PS, Miss Major also has a Facebook page you should totally follow.)

Annual Reminders

I want to talk a bit about the Annual Reminders — partially because they were born out of a protest in Washington DC in 1965 and partially because, without them, we would almost assuredly not have Pride happening each June.

18952957_10100197884879289_529927515281102082_n

On April 17 and 18 of that year, a multitude of gay rights organizations (or “homophile organizations” as they were called) from across the East Coast gathered in Washington D.C. to protest the US and Cuba’s policies on homosexuality. Cuba, at the time, was forcing homosexual men into labor camps. This protest was the combined effort of the DC and NYC chapters of the Mattachine Society, Philadelphia’s Janus Society, and the NYC chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis. These groups decided to band together, forming the East Coast Homophile Organizations (or ECHO). Only 40 activists were present, but it was — at the time — the largest demonstration for LGBT+ rights in world history.

18953009_10100197884110829_4593189369256122997_n

Following the protest in DC, Craig Rodwell decided that there was enough issues facing LGBT+ people in the US that they shouldn’t disappear into the woodwork when there wasn’t a crisis. Other members of ECHO, including pioneers of the gay rights movement such as Barbara Gittings, Frank Kameny, and Kay Tobin agreed. And so, the Annual Reminders were born.

4a6e291e17293c1a857fb0ae1faf341b--human-rights-philadelphia

On July 4 from 1965 to 1969, ECHO gathered outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia to protest. Independence Hall was chosen very specifically, not only because it was where the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were written but because in 1965, it was the home of the Liberty Bell. The Liberty Bell had been a powerful symbol for women’s suffrage and for the abolition of slavery. ECHO was making a concerted effort to tie the struggle of LGBT+ Americans to civil rights efforts of the past.

18952794_10100197884290469_4259163154039702110_n

Frank Kameny had insisted on a very strict dress code for the Annual Reminders. Men were to wear suit jackets and ties, women were to wear dresses. The Annual Reminder ran from 3:30 pm to 5 pm. The press mostly ignored them, although they were described in an article entitled “Homos on the March” published in Confidential magazine’s October 1965 issue.

Screen-Shot-2014-07-01-at-8.22.58-AM.pngThe final Annual Reminder occurred less than a week after the Stonewall Riots. The organizers received death threats, but Frank Kameny arranged for police protection and chartered a bus from New York City to Philadelphia to help activists arrive safely. There were 150 participants in the final Annual Reminder — more than triple the number of participants in the “world’s largest LGBT+ rights demonstration” of just a few years prior.

The Stonewall Riots changed everything for ECHO, which reorganized itself as the Eastern Regional Conference of Homphile Organizations (ERCHO), and decided that instead of having an Annual Reminder in 1970, they should have a non-political parade to commemorate the Stonewall Riots. They named this the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade but it was, in fact, the first Pride Parade. The proposal for this change was drafted by a number of leader in the gay rights movement, including Craig Rodwell — the man who had originally conceived of the Annual Reminders.

picket-plaqueIn 2005, a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker was placed at Chestnut and 6th Streets in Philadelphia to commemorate the Annual Reminders. The city also held a 50th Anniversary celebration in 2015, which included a recreation of the first reminder on July 4th.

(Adapted from this Facebook post.)