Major! Page #4

no more children,

I've got enough gay children.

I said well I don't need

no mama, I do need a grandmama,

because I already had

a gay mother.

And so she said, Ok,

just don't treat me

like no grandmama,

I'm not old and sh*t.

But I'll be your granny.

And so a relationship

ensued from there.

I don't call Miss Major mama

but I do call her

the Anna Wintour of TGIJP,

because she's our

editor in chief.

And in the way that the editor

of Vogue is so clear

on her purpose, Miss Major is

really clear on her purpose,

which is to love all of us

and to fight for all of us.

And she's really powerful

and clear in that purpose.

She's been very instrumental

in keeping me focused on

school, obtaining the necessary

certifications and knowledge

and training to do

this work that I'm doing.

And she never wants to hear

the words "I can't."

Because you can.

Like when I first got

kicked out of college,

I was just stunned.

I thought, wait a minute --

don't they need a minority?

I graduated early,

I graduated at 16.

I wanted to get out

of Chicag

'cause I had an aunt

who lived there.

They had the white boys

of doom in Minnesota.

Corn-fed, thick, tall.

Oh I thought going there

I would just be

the queen of the ball, child.

A Black girl with

all these white boys around?

It'll be wonderful.

So I was there, I was unpacking

my stuff and I only took

a couple of dresses --

one little pair of shoes,

two wigs for evening

when I would zip out.

My roommate found that stuff

when I was in one of my classes

and when I came back my stuff

was sitting on my bed.

So I said "What,

you wear dresses?"

He said, "No, I was looking

for something and I found those,

and whose are those?"

"Well, they're mine, stupid,

they're in my closet,

they're mine."

So he told everybody on

our floor that I wore dresses.

The cute boys

didn't pay it any attention.

They said, "Well,

if you do that, do you cook?"

"Yeah, I can cook."

"Oh, well you know there s

a kitchen at the far end."

So I fixed breakfasts

and lunches and you know

"I have some soup

and sandwiches in my room."

The dorm patron or whatever

the hell he was,

he came in my room telling me,

"Well, you know this sh*t's

gotta go --

we're not having this here."

And you can't tell me

what to do.

I'm grown.

I don't know

what you're issue is.

And so I went to class,

came back like a week later,

they had all my stuff packed up,

had it by the door --

and a little note on it.

"It was really nice having

you here and the experience

of meeting you was

really different.

Bye."

And off I had to go.

It's so funny to think of

what I missed, if I could have

gone, what could I have done?

Could I have still held

onto my transgender self

and still done something?

You know.

So now when I see one

of the girls and they say,

"Oh, well I'm late.

I gotta go to class."

Inside I dance around

like Snoopy in summertime.

Hey!

Yeah, godammit!

You going to school!

And I was trying to figure out

what I wanted to do with

my life, I had no experience,

I had no job experience,

and I wanted a career.

So Major said, well you know

what I want some implants,

I want a new pair of implants.

So I'm going to go

to City College

to the financial aid office

to get a loan and get surgery,

come go with me.

I was like oh my god

I'm not going anywhere, because

believe it or not I was so,

so afraid

because of the harassment I had

experienced all my entire life.

But I went,

because Major was with me.

Major was walking next to me.

And we walked throughout

the whole campus, financial aid,

the classrooms, the parking lot,

and then we left.

Long story short, Major

did not go to City College.

I went to City College.

And I realized some years later

that she had walked me

through that process

for my being comfortable.

And that was one of the first

times that she was really

so, so supportive of me.

New York was wonderful.

New York was the place

to be at that time.

Everything was changing,

people's attitude

about stuff was different.

Women were starting

to burn their bras.

One of the best things that

I really enjoyed

about the '60s, was hookin'.

Hookin' was fabulous

in New York then.

You know, the girls would be

walking down the middle

of the street flipping grapes

and catching them

and you know, licking on hotdogs

and stuff at the corner.

And the tricks were

just everywhere.

It was fabulous.

And you made good money,

which was

My generation went through

a time of we'll be out hooking,

you can only go out in

any amount of safety

between midnight and 3:30 AM,

that was it.

And then you had to learn,

after you

and wear the right dress

and find shoes that

you were comfortable in,

how to run in them,

change clothes, leap over cars,

pop up on the next corner

with a new wig, another dress

and a different pair of shoes,

and watch the police

run by chasing you.

That took work!

I'm sorry, that's a job!

I got involved with a couple

of drag shows back then,

the Jewelbox Revue

and the Powder Puff Review.

And they would go on

what's ca

and perform, and it would be

25 men and

And the only woman

in the whole little company

was this g

who was the male MC.

And I was a sh

I knew Mal really well.

And she was their first

Black major act.

And when Mal and I worked

together to try to

get together an act, they said

they didn't want two Black girls

as major acts in the show.

We couldn't go

to the theaters painted.

We had to go looking like men.

And we had to paint there,

so that meant getting

there three hours earlier

than the show.

And then we couldn't leave done.

The young queens like myself,

a couple of the dancers,

"Miss thing,

I can paint at home.

I don't need to be painting

there around all the musty old

white motherfucking queens."

God, Stonewall was

a wonderful place to be in.

Because all of the things

that you need to be around

or see was there.

There was older gentlemen

there who were tricks

and going to pay you money.

There was trade there,

you know boys that hooked over

on Broadway or on 5th Avenue

and would come there

to spend their little bit

of money and stuff.

There were other girls there,

there was an atmosphere

of enjoying who we were,

you know, in our space.

And one of the things

I remember about that day was,

I think they had just

buried Judy Garland that day.

And all I can remember

about that is,

she had a casket full of lilies

that just brought you to tears

when you saw it on TV.

Why it was on TV I have no idea.

Stonewall wasn't on TV

and that should have been.

And what happened was

that night, it was just

a matter of they used to do

that to us all the time.

Just come into the bar,

and the lights would go on

and everybody would

just stream out.

Nothing ever really had

to get said, because

you knew just what had

to happen, you knew that's

what the routine was.

And it was just a night that,

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