Returning from the festival, Brody and Henry Weimhoff founded the Chicago Gay Alliance, initially called the Chicago Gay Liberation. Almost simultaneously, Gray, along with Brody,
E. Kitch Childs and
Margaret E. Sloan, among others, founded the Women's Caucus of the CGA. From the beginning, the Women's Caucus was a multi-racial organization, though numbers of white and black members shifted over time. The Women's Caucus changed their name to
Chicago Lesbian Liberation (CLL) and split from the CGA when it became apparent that the parent organization was ignoring the issues of gender and race. Gray also established an LGBTQ support hotline with the telephone number FBI-LIST (324–5478), which was operated from her apartment in Hyde Park. Her apartment on 56th Street at Drexel Avenue, often served as a temporary shelter for homeless LGBTQ youth and eventually she had to leave it to regain her privacy. In 1970, she took a cross-country trip with a group of gay men and in 1972, a trip to France. After a visit to
Paris, she went to the
Taizé monastery, where she worked answering letters. On her return trip to Paris, Gray met
James Baldwin. The experiences of the trip rejuvenated her belief in social activism. The CLL founded a newspaper, the
Lavender Woman, held
consciousness-raising sessions, and participated in direct actions. Gray was actively involved, participating in and helping to organize the 1970
Pride March in Chicago and writing for the
Lavender Woman. The weekly gatherings of the CLL were known as "Monday Night Meetings" and post-meeting festivities were held at King's Ransom pub, located at 20 E. Chicago Avenue. The pub's central location and tolerance for their mixed-race group, made it popular for the
liberationists to meet there and the bar owner, pleased to have a crowd on a typically unprofitable night, made it "ladies night". Gray was not a
separatist and voiced her opposition when the Women's Center operated by the Pride and Prejudice Bookstore changed to the Lesbian Feminist Center and began excluding anyone who did not accept that men and male-defined organizations and institutions should be completely separate from women's activities. In addition to her activism, Gray began her career working for the telephone company and as a copyeditor for
Playboy. In the early 1980s, she opened a restaurant known as
Sol Sands on West Montrose Avenue in
Uptown, which she operated for eight years. She published a book of her own poetry,
Sweet Sixteen in 1986 and participated in poetry performances at Mountain Moving Coffeehouse. After she closed the restaurant, she ran a company which developed children's audio visual materials for three years. She also continued publishing in both mainstream media and gay media publications, including the newspapers
Nightlines and
Outlines. In 1992, Gray was inducted into the
Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame for her many years of activism. The following year, she went to work in the office of the
Cook County State's Attorney as an LGBTQ victim-witness coordinator for community members and their families who were involved in domestic violence or hate crimes. In 1993, she was one of the plaintiffs involved in the
Lambda Legal case, securing the right for gays and lesbians to march in the
Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic. Gray was diagnosed with
breast cancer in 1995 and after
chemotherapy treatment her cancer went into remission. In 1998, in recognition of her work, she was honored along with Shadow Morton, Damian Pardo, and
Margarita Sánchez De León with the Stonewall Award, presented by the Anderson Prize Foundation to LGBTQ activists working to improve their communities. On 1999, Gray was promoted within the State's Attorney's Office to serve as a liaison for the LGBTQ community, participating in outreach events in the community and among the general public. In her work, she assisted victims of crime as well as the families of murdered LGBTQ people, teaching in various schools about hate crimes, and presenting educational programs on television. In 2001, she became the victim of an illegal eviction, when she returned after making a presentation on hate crime to find that her condominium association had evicted her. Ignoring a court order vacating a previous eviction request, based upon alleged discrimination against Gray and her then partner, Pat Gilbert, because the couple were lesbian and mixed-race, the association contacted sheriffs deputies to evict Gray and confiscated all of her belongings. Citing her awards and position with the government, the judge returned Gray's condominium to her. In her later years, Gray worked to preserve LGBTQ history and with the LGBT Task Force of
AARP to advise on issues concerning aging in the LGBTQ community. In 2003 Gray's cancer returned and she opted to have a
double mastectomy with immediate
reconstructive surgery. Though she identified as a
butch lesbian, Gray struggled with whether to do the reconstruction, but later said she was glad that she had done so. When
Barack Obama, whom she had worked with when he was a Senator from Illinois was elected president, Gray was invited to the
White House for the 2009 Pride reception. Four months later, she went to the White House again when the president signed the
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which she had advocated passing for many years. Gray met Patricia Ewert through her work and in 2009 the two became engaged. They were united in a civil ceremony in Illinois in 2011, the year Gray retired after 18 years of service in the offices of the State's Attorney and her cancer returned. In 2013, the couple actively were involved in campaigning for same-sex marriage in Illinois, despite Gray's cancer spreading to her brain. After the state
Senate approved a bill on Valentine's Day, the vote was not called in the House fearing lack of support. Working behind the scenes, Gray argued that Ewert should receive her Social Security survivor benefits. When the bill passed in November, but did not allow couples to marry until the following June, Lambda Legal filed a case on November 22, seeking an immediate relief for Gray and Ewert to marry. Within days, their case was reviewed and Judge Thomas Durkin granted permission for them to marry. Gray and Ewert became the first same-sex couple legally allowed to exchange vows in Illinois, when they were married on 27 November 2013. ==Death and legacy==