Miss Major Speaks
Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
Toshio Meronek
SOCIETY & SOCIAL SCIENCES
14 €
Coup de coeur
(LGBTQ+), by Lily
This is an insight into the world and mind of an incredible revolutionary and revered elder of the LGBTQ+ community, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. She speaks honestly and openly about her experience as a trans woman in America during the 50s through to the current day, particularly addressing the infamous Stonewall Riots, why she refuses to attend Pride parades, and police violence. She and Toshio Meronek discuss the importance of building community through co-living, mutual aid, practices of sharing with and caring for members of your community. Im so glad this book exists; her confidence, courage and power are palpable.
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.
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.
Publisher: Verso Books
Binding: Paperback
Publication date: 16 May 2023
Dimensions: 127 x 198 x 18 mm
ISBN: 9781839763342
