We are honoring Miss Major Griffin-Gracy — a living legend, an 84-year-old Black trans activist and revolutionary, whose very life is a rebuke to erasure. Miss Major was at the Stonewall Inn on the first night the rebellion began in 1969. She’s often said she wasn’t there to make history; she was just trying to survive. But her survival is history — and a reminder that trans women of color were the spark and the spirit of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

12 Days of Pride is BET.com’s tribute to pioneers and heroes like Miss Major, whose resistance laid the foundation for the rights we claim today. “Well, you know what—the atmosphere in the air, in the world that we are in—it’s kind of special that we still have Pride,” Miss Major reflects. “Just the fact that it’s happening, it’s very meaningful.” For more than five decades, Miss Major has been organizing for her community—from fighting for the rights of incarcerated trans women to mentoring generations of queer and trans youth. She’s real and refuses to be sanitized for whitewashed rainbow capitalism. This Pride, we say her name loud: Miss Major. Because without her and her sisters, there’d be no Pride at all.