The world has lost a true icon. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a Black transgender woman, revolutionary, and one of the most important voices in LGBTQ+ history, has died at 78.

According to the Bay Area Reporter, Miss Major passed away on October 13 at her home in Little Rock, Arkansas, surrounded by family and friends. She was placed in home hospice earlier this month after experiencing several health challenges in recent years, including a stroke in 2019.

Miss Major dedicated over five decades to fighting for trans people, especially Black trans women, trans women of color, and those who survived incarceration and police brutality. She was not just a figurehead; she was the blueprint.

She lived many lives and survived all of them. AtIn 22 years old, Miss Major was there the first night of the Stonewall uprising in 1969. She always said she was not there to make history but simply to survive. She endured Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and sex work. Additionally, she helped build the drag ball scene in the late 1960s and even ran one of the first needle exchange programs from the back of her van.

In San Francisco, she co-founded the Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) in 2004 and later served as its executive director, fighting for the rights of incarcerated trans women. Her 2023 book, Miss Major Speaks, chronicled her journey as a former sex worker, elder, and organizer who refused to be broken.

She was featured in the award-winning documentary Major! in 2016, served as a San Francisco Pride grand marshal, and later co-founded House of GG in Arkansas, a retreat for trans people to heal from trauma. Even in her later years, she remained active and visible.

Miss Major was a living legend who reminded the world that trans women of color were the spark and spirit of the modern LGBTQ+ movement. She refused to be erased or sanitized. Without her and her sisters, there would be no Pride at all. On a personal note, I had the honor of interviewing Miss Major in June for BET.com’s 12 Days of Pride series—one of her final interviews. See a clip below.

Rest in power,  Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

Clay Cane is a New York Times bestselling writer and the author of the upcoming Burn Down Master’s House: A Novel, which will be released Jan. 27. Pre-order here.