IT GETS BETTER

[IT GETS BETTER]

This week’s #BlackHistoryMonth queer pioneer is Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, trans activist and the original Executive Director for the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project!
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Growing up in Chicago, Griffin-Gracy attended drag balls and relied on the black market for hormones to transition. Having been kicked out of two colleges for her identity, she moved to New York City and grew into her activism as a supporter of trans rights, finding solace at the Stonewall Inn and participating in the uprising.
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Today, Griffin-Gracy focuses her activism on intersectionality and the safety of young trans women: “I’d like for the girls to get a chance to be who they are. For young transgender people to go to school, learn like everyone else does, and then get out there and live their lives, not afraid or thinking that the only solution for them is death.”

[IT GETS BETTER]

In honor of #BlackHistoryMonth, we’re celebrating queer pioneers! Ernestine Eckstein was one of the first Black women on the forefront of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the 1960’s, putting her knowledge from the Civil Rights movement to good use.
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After college, she moved to New York City where she grew into her identity as a lesbian and decided to join the movement for LGBTQ+ rights. After a friend explained the term “gay” to her, she said, “Then all of a sudden things began to click … the next thing on the agenda was to find a way of being in the homosexual movement.”
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Eckstein often demonstrated for LGBTQ+ rights as the only woman of color among other white protestors, connecting the dots between Black Civil Rights and LGBTQ+ rights. She eventually became a leader in the New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis, as well as other Black feminist organizations like Black Women Organized for Action (BWOA). She was in favor of doing away with labels, and uniting people together as people alone. “I’d like to find a way of getting all classes of homosexuals involved together in the movement.“ 💪