A review by readingpicnic
Miss Major Speaks: The Life and Times of a Black Trans Revolutionary by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

5.0

I love you, Miss Major. This was such a wonderful book and gave me hope for trans* futures. I adored reading about Miss Major's perspectives on the queer and trans* communities, as well as social justice needing to start from the very bottom with grassroots projects. I recognized a lot of the events and people that she mentioned from taking LGBTQIA+ classes for my WGS minor, so I feel like this book helped me build my knowledge on queer and trans* history from the perspective of someone who was there through it all. Her point about Stonewall not being an end-all-be-all was very true, and I appreciate her bluntness and honesty about how the queer community, especially the white queer community has historically ignored, harassed, and excluded the trans* community, especially trans* people of color (like literally just watch the speech that Sylvia Rivera gave at pride where she was booed off the stage by white queer people for talking about transness). Her openness about what trans* can mean is very refreshing and doesn't exclude or require explicit labels. I also love her emphasis on community and that change has to come from within the community; that they should get to make the decisions about their own lives. She has such a distinct voice that really shines through on the page, and this was overall an incredible start to my Trans* Rights Readathon.
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