Her parents, a postal service administrator and beauty shop manager, took her to her first drag show, but were unsupportive when they realized their child identified with the performers. Born in Chicago, she says her mother named her Major after a psychic told her to give her child “a name of importance”, correctly predicting the significant legacy she’d have. It’s this maternal, caretaking nature that has made her a mother to many trans girls across the country she stopped counting after 20 daughters.
It’s in my head, but I try my best to live it now I know the world I would like to live in. When I arrive at her home the first week of Pride month, she and her assistant encourage me to spin on the merry-go-round to relax and “feel like a kid again”. Miss Major is, by many measures, the most celebrated trans activist and elder alive today. “And if they come knocking, I’ll be ready.” On the wall in her living room is a painted portrait featuring her “I’m still fucking HERE” mantra, now a rallying cry for so many Black trans women who aspire to defy expectations and live long, full lives like Miss Major. No matter how many anti-trans bills Arkansas adopts, the lawmakers can’t stop her from enjoying the tranquility of life inside Tilifi and sharing that with others. It can be whatever color, I’m still gonna be here.” Who’s gonna let me own property? But I finally have it.
I’ve wanted this for so long, but I couldn’t figure out how. “When the girls come here, they don’t have to worry about anything. Her doormats say “Welcome bitches”, “Fuck off”, “Come back with a warrant” and “Home, where the ho & me come together”. “I’ve gotta make joy here, because it doesn’t exist in the normal world,” says Miss Major, gesturing to her pool and hot tub, surrounded by a luscious green backyard where she’s placed 81 palm trees, flowers, rock gardens, a swing, a hammock and an old-school merry-go-round that reminds her of New York City playgrounds from her youth. Nextdoor to her house, connected by a path she painted bright yellow, is the Oasis, a guest home where she invites trans leaders and loved ones to stay, with a singular goal: to rest and relax. She first called it House of GG, after her initials, but recently renamed it Tilifi, which stands for Telling It Like It Fuckin’ Is, something Miss Major is exceptionally good at doing. “This” is her latest project – a sanctuary for trans and gender-nonconforming people that she built on the property where she lives in the southern conservative state. Photograph: Courtesy of Miss Major/House of GG Miss Major at the Gilded Grape, a New York nightclub, in the 1970s.
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