By the mid-1980s, the AIDS epidemic had completely gripped the nation. Its victims, primarily queer men, were dying by the thousands. Fear and misinformation reigned supreme, and our government refused to respond to the crisis. Reverend Charles Angel, a community leader and activist who was living with HIV himself, recognized that queer men of color faced additional disparities due to cultural norms and societal inequities.
The GLBT Historical Society Museum's latest exhibition, I Live the Life I Love Because I Love the Life I Live, shines a spotlight on the resilience, creativity, and cultural impact of Black, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander trans and gender-nonconforming people. Co-presented with the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive (LLTA), the exhibition explores both performance and everyday expressions of identity, and features studio portraits of gender impersonators from Finocchio's-the famed San Francisco cabaret-and the touring Jewel Box Revue, alongside candid photographs, activist materials, and self-portraits.
Miss Major, 84 has been in the hospital for 12 days. She has had ongoing health problems, having posted in January that she needed 24-hour nursing care after a recent hospitalization. She had a stroke in 2019. Related: 'Enough Is Enough' 10 LGBTQ+ Elders Share Their Words of Wisdom Miss Major, a Black genderqueer transgender woman, has dedicated the last 50 years to advocating for incarcerated trans people, particularly trans women of color, who are often housed in men's prisons, as she was. She has worked for multiple HIV and AIDS organizations, and she was the first executive director of the Transgender Gender-Variant and Intersex Justice Project, a role she held until she retired in 2015.