Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary

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The future of Black, queer, and trans liberation explored by a legendary transgender elder and activist

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who has survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis and a world that white supremacy has built. She has shared tips with other sex workers in the nascent drag ball scene of the late 1960s, and helped found one of America's first needle exchange clinics from the back of her van.

Miss Major Speaks is both document of her brilliant life-told with intimacy, warmth and an undeniable levity-and a roadmap for the challenges black, brown, queer and trans youth will face on the path to liberation today.

Her incredible story of a life lived and a world survived becomes a conduit for larger questions about the riddle of collective liberation. For a younger generation, she warns about the traps of 'representation, ' the politics of 'self-care, ' and the frequent dead-ends of non-profit organizing; for all of us, she is a strike against those who would erase these histories of struggle.

Miss Major offers something that cannot be found elsewhere: an affirmation that our vision for freedom can and must be more expansive than those on offer by mainstream institutions.

About the Author

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a living legend in trans/queer circles around the world. She is currently based in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she runs the House of GG educational retreat and historical center.

Toshio Meronek is a San Francisco-based writer focusing on housing and queer politics.

"The rarest of gifts, like sitting at the feet of a wise, no-fucks-given elder, listening to her testimony, and being fortified by her brilliance. A monument to the life's work of Miss Major and the liberation movements she's shaped."
--Janet Mock, author of Surpassing Certainty

"The extraordinary insights in this book, always punctuated by Miss Major's razor-sharp wit, allow us to understand how liberation movements for trans, queer and other routinely marginalized people can hold the most emancipatory potential for all."
--Angela Davis, author of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

"Miss Major has shaped the world in countless ways from Stonewall to today by being her unruly, fabulous self, leading communities, making time, and caring for and keeping her girls going. Lucky us to live in a moment where she is radiantly shining her light unto us all through this book!"
--Tourmaline, artist, writer, and filmmaker

"Though she has faced many struggles in her eight decades on Earth, Major's resilience, optimism, and often bawdy humor shine through ... a powerful and enlightening read."
--Pax Ahimsa Gethen, Trans Writes

"[Miss Major's] most vital and resonant message is around self-hood: a continual creation and a journey to be enjoyed."
--Dinyar Godrej, New Internationalist

"When a figure such as Major speaks, you cannot help but eat each and every single word up."
--Tara Okeke, The Skinny

Publisher: Verso
Pub date: May 16, 2023
Length: 176 pages
Format: Paperback