Trans trailblazer Miss Major has passed: Read our 2023 interview with the Stonewall veteran - 48 hills

"Iconic Black trans revolutionary Miss Major Griffin-Gracy passed away October 13, aged 78, at her home in Little Rock, Arkansas, but she will always be remembered for her work in San Francisco, co-founding the Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project-which works to end human rights abuses against trans, intersex, and gender-variant people, particularly trans women of color who are in California prisons and detention centers-and standing up for the rights of local sex workers-among many, many other things."

"Major's assistant, journalist Toshio Meronek, became quite sure that the lessons learned by Miss Major during her decades of activism would be of importance to the generations who are to come. Meronek and Major hit upon a plan not to get her life story down on paper-Major wasn't interested in a standard biography-but instead record their conversations about her experiences, and the techniques she uses to best serve her communities."

"But that's hardly the only achievement that harm reductionist and trans rights advocate Miss Major Griffin-Gracy has under her belt. The 82-year-old community organizer drove San Francisco's first needle exchange van back in the day. In her time at the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center, Major founded a 24-hour drop-in center named GiGi's PLace that she stocked with comfy couches and mirrors so that her gurls (preferred nomenclature for her trans sisters) could do their face before heading out for a shift of sex work."

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy passed away October 13 at her home in Little Rock, Arkansas. She co-founded the Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project to end human rights abuses against trans, intersex, and gender-variant people, with a focus on trans women of color in California prisons and detention centers. She organized harm reduction services in San Francisco, driving the city's first needle exchange van and founding GiGi's PLace, a 24-hour drop-in center stocked with couches and mirrors for trans women engaged in sex work. She recorded conversations with journalist Toshio Meronek that became Miss Major Speaks, emphasizing practical community-care techniques rather than a conventional biography.

Read at 48 hills