Miss Major is a Black genderqueer transgender rights advocate and pre-Stonewall Riots era transgender and gay rights activist. Miss Major has expressed no preference for pronouns, this article will refer to Miss Major with they/them and she/her pronouns. She grew up in an unsupportive family and met a drag queen who assisted her in achieving her presentation wishes and taught her how to do her make-up. Miss Major was unfairly expelled from two separate colleges for ‘cross-dressing’ in the early 1960s. She then moved to New York City in 1962 and made a living as a sex worker, which she later stated was a comfortable line of work for her.

They were present at the Stonewall Riots, and worked as a performer in the NYC drag scene for many years. Miss Major was incarcerated at Sing Sing prison for alleged robbery of a client, she was heavily mistreated as an inmate and later stated this experience politicized her against the criminal justice system.

They later became a Drag Mother for many younger transgender artists and is lovingly referred to as Mama Major by many. She had a child with a partner and when they separated, she later co-parented her child. Miss Major had a partner Joe Bob who fell ill from HIV and sadly later died of complications due to AIDS. She then joined a HIV prevention clinic and after witnessing a lack of transgender patients, took to the streets to begin a street- based HIV clinic and care program.

She later moved to Arkansas with her partner Beck, whom is a transgender man, and had another child. She renamed her new home and land, TILIFS, or “Tellin’ it like it f***kin is.”