“GRITS” (Girl/Girls Raised In The South) is a jocular acronym that has been printed on many gift items, such as T-shirts. “GRIT - Girl Raised In The South” has been cited in print since at least 1997.
 
“GRIT” (Girl/Girls Raised In Texas) has also been cited in print since at least 1997.
     
 
OCLC WorldCat record
GRITS : girls raised in the South
Author: Deborah Ford; Paula Bennett
Publisher: Birmingham, Ala. : Southern Appeal, ©1997.
Edition/Format:   Book : English
   
Google Groups: soc.history.war.us-civil-war
Salt & Hominy
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
5/7/97
On 15 Apr 1997 21:13:15 -0500, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Nick kane7) wrote:
>Lastly a new question: Lincoln said Vicksburg was the key to the war “It
>means hog and hominy without limit’. So what’s Hominy?
 
All Unionists and city-folk take note:
 
“Hominy” is corn soaked in water until it “puffs up”.  It is then allowed to dry.  If you grind the dried “Hominy”, then you have “Grits”.  I am quite fond of both kinds of “grits”—the kind you eat and the other kind—Girls Raised In The South.

Regards,
Allen Sullivant
 
Google Groups: rec.arts.tv.soaps.abc
What is RATSA and SORAS?
DonnaB
6/9/97
TAN: What is GRITS?
On Mon, 09 Jun 1997 18:45:51 GMT, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Sylvia Nolan)
wrote:
| On Fri, 06 Jun 1997 21:43:43 GMT, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (DonnaB)
| wrote:
|
| >      GRITS - Girl Raised In The South
|
| GRITS! I like it. Do you have any membership rules or tests to be
| passed (like telling you the recipe for iced tea) or can I just add it
| to my sig file?
Oh, add it, by all means.  I don’t know what we’d do if any Yankees wanted to be GRITS, fer example, but I’m sure we could be accommodating somehow.  I know there have gotta be tons of GRITS here. You can just tell, ya know.  I’m a fan of Luzianne, both caff and decaf, for hot and for regular (meaning iced) tea & I use Equal in it & a little lemon juice.  How about you?  Could you just live off of iced tea if need be?!!
 
| Sylvia RoseBob “or should I be a GRIT - Girl Raised in Texas -
| instead?”
 
23 November 1997, Aiken (SC) Standard, “Searching for Christmas’ best-sellers” by Sharon Taylor, pg. 1C, col. 4:
Plum Pudding offers the popular GRITS (Girls Raised In The South) T-shirts or Seasoned Grits T-shirts which bear the name of (Grandmas Raised In The South) on the front.
     
Google Books
Basketful of Blessings:
Encouragement for Every Day
By Wanda Griffith
Cleveland, TN: Pathway Press
1998
Pg. ?:
Being a “GRITS” girl (“girl raised in the South”), I love iced tea.
 
22 June 1998, Marietta (GA)

, pg. 5A, col. 2 ad:
Grits
“Girls Raised In The South”
(Classic Monograms & More.—ed.)
 
Google Books
Eggstra
Courage for the Chicken Hearted:
More Heartfelt Stories to Encourage Confident Living
By Becky Freeman Johnson, et al.
Tulsa, OK: Honor Books
1999
Pg. 102:
Though I’d always considered myself a true GRITS (Girl Raised in the South), I came to see there are several small differences between Texas “South,” and Deep South “South.”
 
New York (NY) Times
In Central Park, Another Sleepy Delta Day in June
By TINA KELLEY
Published: June 11, 2000
(...)
Certainly no one would go hungry during this 21st Annual Way Up North in Mississippi picnic, where by 2 p.m., 400 people, mostly Ole Miss graduates, women in pink T-shirts that read ‘‘Grits,’’ for Girls Raised in the South, and others missing Mississippi had bought tickets for catfish lunches, which they ate in the scarce shade, serenaded by a band fresh out of Batesville.
 
Urban Dictionary
GRITS
Acronym for “Girls Raised In The South”
BUMPER STICKER: I love “GRITS” (girls raised in the south.)
by some guy November 17, 2002
 
OCLC WorldCat record
The Grits guide to life Girls raised in the South.
Author: Deborah Ford
Publisher: New York. Plume, the Penguin Group. 2003.
Edition/Format:   Book : English
 
Urban Dictionary
G.R.I.T.S.
Girls Raised in The South
A Female raised in the southern part of the US
a female raised in Tennasee
by Jon December 24, 2003
 
OCLC WorldCat record
G.R.I.T.s.: the southern subculture of violence and homicide offenses by girls raised in the South.
Author: JM Doucet Affiliation: Francis Marion University, Florence, SC, USA.; D’Antonio-Del Rio JM; CD Chauvin
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Journal of interpersonal violence, 2014 Mar; 29(5): 806-23
Database: From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Summary:
The southern subculture of violence is a theoretical perspective that has been examined by numerous scholars in an attempt to explain the high rates of violence in the Southern United States. Research over the past several decades has converged on a few explanations for this violence, including a culture of honor, a frontier mentality, and a presence of evangelical Protestantism. The primary focus of this research has been on either male offending or race disaggregated offending. The influence of the southern subculture of violence on female offending has only recently come to the forefront and has concentrated on relatively recent time periods (1990s to present). The present study examines the effect of southern culture on female-perpetrated homicides in the 1970s, a time when female offending was on the rise. Utilizing a southern subculture of violence index, our county-level negative binomial regression analysis finds that in counties with more Southern-born residents and a higher presence of evangelical Protestantism, female homicide offending is higher. Implications of these results and avenues for future research are discussed.