Southern Queer Newsroom
On October 13, 2025, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a Black trans woman and Stonewall veteran, finally passed away at 78 years old. She was twelve days away from her 79th birthday.
Miss Major's life and activism reflect so many of the problems that trans people still face in the U.S. and how much progress that has been made because of the hard work of her and so many others. She worked as a sex worker to make a stable income, which far too many people still find themselves forced into to make ends meet. She rebelled at Stonewall in 1969, fighting alongside Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson against a bigoted NYPD. She was repeatedly incarcerated for her work.
Today, trans people still face much higher rates of assault, rape, substance use, mistreatment during incarceration, harassment, and violence. We are being persecuted by the federal and state governments. Conservative outlets and media personalities have called for our eradication and called us demons. They tear up rainbow crosswalks in Florida and Texas, ban us from bathrooms, and rip life-saving healthcare from us.
Miss Major's life is a shining reminder that none of us are destined to die from suicide, murder, or overdose. The activism Miss Major undertook, whether that be founding the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), writing for Captive Genders, a book about the prison system and prison abolition, or writing her memoir, Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary, inspired a whole generation of activists, advocates, and brave souls trying to survive to the next day.
Miss Major Griffon-Gracy may be dead, but her soul goes marching on, alongside all of us. Rest in power.