A formerly incarcerated black transgender activist will serve as keynote speaker for the fifth-annual Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference, the Pennsylvania Youth Congress announced Feb. 9.
Known in the community as “Mama,” Miss Major Griffin-Gracy participated in the Stonewall Rebellion and came out of Attica State Prison. She has fought for the rights of trans women of color for more than 40 years.
Miss Major is the first black keynote speaker for the conference and the third trans woman.
“She is a national treasure and an icon,” said Jason Landau Goodman, PYC executive director. “Certainly, she represents the values that we are fighting for in terms of holding up those who can be invisible or voiceless.”
The conference takes place April 8-10 at the University of Pennsylvania. Registration costs $35.
Miss Major was featured in a documentary about her activism, which came out in November coinciding with her retirement from the San Francisco-based Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project. A screening of “Major!” will take place immediately after the opening plenary.
Landau Goodman said Miss Major would also help young activists put their work in perspective.
“We very much cherish the relationships young activists and older activists have and should cultivate,” he said. “Having the elder perspective is important for us to understand the long-term effects of violence in community safety work.”
The conference will cover the future of community safety and its intersection with LGBT Pennsylvania, including topics from violence experienced by transgender individuals to criminal-justice reform.
“We are certainly prioritizing intersectionality and allyship with the Black Lives Matter movement,” Landau Goodman said. “Absolutely, this has come increasingly to the forefront of the national spotlight. We’re looking forward to what we can do now. We want to identify what we can do now as young people to affect change.”
For more information, visit www.youthactionconference.com.