Major! Page #3

I'm going to grow out of it,

as I turned 40

and then 50.

It's a phase.

He's gonna grow out of it.

I woulda wondered --

I would get tired

of telling myself that,

you know what I mean.

But they held onto that

until mother passed away.

She still was sure that

next year was gonna be the year

I became the man

I was supposed to be.

And it was so hard explaining

to her, I am the man

I'm supposed to be.

I'm lovely.

My sister couldn't handle it

at all, Cookie was

five years younger than me.

And it was just

so much trauma for her.

And when I would send

pictures back I'd send them

to my sister to see

how I was doing in New York

and what I looked like

and what was going on.

And it was just

so heartbreaking

when she burned

all those pictures.

And my mother never got over it.

She had like three boxes

full of pictures.

And every holiday, well

we're gonna put them in a book.

No one ever bought a book,

and they never left the box.

So Cookie told mother

one year that she was

going to do it for her.

Mother got all excited

and Cookie came back

and put a bunch of ashes

in front of my mother

on her table.

Mother goes

Well, what is this?"

"Oh, those are your pictures."

And she turned around

and walked out.

So, that was between them.

I had my own issues

with my folks.

It be what it be.

Cookie killed herself

when she was 26.

In Peoria, Illinois.

It was pretty devastating,

there was nothing I could do

to help her or save her.

And I would have liked to.

My dad made a mistake

of telling me one day that,

"Well, she took

the easy way out."

That's not easy.

I'm sorry.

You can say that

all you f***ing want to.

That is not an easy thing to do.

Because I think there's

an innate thing in us

to want to live,

see the next day.

Oh my transition,

it was years in the making.

It's not something that

just happens overnight.

You think about these things,

you have these feelings

that you just can't shake,

you just

I happened to be of course

at home, my mother

and dad were out.

And I went through my mother's

closet and put on one

of the little dresses

that would fit,

and was flitting

around the house.

And then I ventured

into the backyard, and then

I went to the garage door,

stood by the door panting,

that I'd come to the garage

and someone might have seen me,

and then I ran back

into the house and stuff.

And it wasn't until I met

this older queen in Chicago,

her name was Kitty,

and she dressed me up

and showed me how to

put on make up and stuff.

And it was kind of like

the movie with Natalie Wood,

the Gypsy movie where

she gets

and she's so surprised

how pretty she was.

I'm a pretty girl Mama.

That's exactly

what happened to me, you know.

When Kitty was through with me

and I looked at myself

in the mirror, I was

absolutel

It was like "there's Major!

Where the hell have you been?"

Being transgender women,

and being transgender women

of color, and coming out

in the late '60s and early '70s,

there was a landscape

already out there, the landscape

itself was not healthy at all,

there was the street, there was

the clubs, there was the stage,

and there were pageants.

And then coming from home,

whether we were put out,

whether we left, whether

we were treated violently,

or however, this is

what we brought

to our new environment.

And many, many trans women

of color

I ended up leaving home at 18,

I was given $200, a car,

and told to never come back

unless I come home

and be a man in public

and be a girl inside the house.

Well, I can't do that,

I have to be me 24/7.

So I've been disowned,

cut off, and I've been alone,

I've done a lot of things,

nefarious things,

that I am not proud of.

But nor would I have changed

if I could go back in time

and change.

I would not change it

because it helped me grow

and become who I am today.

If my family loved me,

I wouldn't have

probably been a prostitute.

I wouldn't have probably been

a booster going

in stores stealing to survive.

I probably wouldn't mess

with this dope dealer

or this pimp, or something,

because they were the only one

that wasn't ashamed

to show me love in public.

So, I got to live me

though for now.

And this is who I am,

and this is who I'm going to be.

You don't get

a chance to choose.

That's true, it chooses you.

I tried to tell my mother that,

who was a therapist.

And also a gangsta.

Don't pick on us therapists!

And also a gangsta.

And she used to wake me up

in the middle of the night

with a gun to my head

and say y

Oh that was my father,

did they know each other?

And she would say you know

I could kill you right now,

you know they kill Black boys,

you know I could say

you were breaking in.

And I'd be like!

I was thrown out to the wolves.

And a lot of children

committed s

My father wanted me

to be his son, oh poor thing.

And he was a career Navy man.

And he loved putting

a gun to my head.

And at first it was

I'll kill you and kill myself.

And then when I turned around

14, 15, he went into this

"I'll kill you

and do the time."

And I thought now wait a minute

something's changed right there.

You get to live,

something's happened.

When Major came around,

they called her Mama Major.

She was a, just

a warm welcoming Mama.

I seen a couple of the girls

and a few other people

either call her Granny or Mom.

So I asked her, I said

do you mind if I call you Mom?

And she said no I don't sweetie,

so I started calling her mom.

One of the reasons that

I call Mis

when you're around

Miss Major, she will stop

the whole world to look at you

and to really see you.

And she is able to see

the pain that you carry

and the joy that you carry,

and there can be like

5,000 phones ringing

and a foundation officer

that's like waiting,

and she's gonna be like

ok you need to wait, because

I'm taking care of this person.

You just want to fold

in her arms and sit there

for 30 years because

you feel safe there

and you feel seen there

and beautiful.

And I think, our people

don't get to feel that a lot.

And I would be so tired,

and I d tell Mama put

my bags in the trunk of your car

because I got no place to stay,

and Miss Major would take me

to the New Pacific

and rent a hotel there

and say sleep miss thing.

From there I knew

that someone cared.

And whoever this woman was

I knew that was my mother

and I asked her to please

be my mother.

And Mama, anyone who is

really close to her

and who loves her and she loves

and chooses, she's very

dysfunctional with us.

All of us.

And so if she's not,

if she doesn't give you grief

or jabs at you or whatever,

you don't mean as much to her

as someone that she does jab

and play around with,

and you know, Mama how she is.

"I'm gonna do no matter what,"

you know.

So, it's very special for me.

I said I need someone

to walk on this journey with me.

And she said, I don't want

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