Injustice towards Black Trans Women and the First Trans Cultural District

This conversation will center around two topics: Injustice towards black trans women in our criminal justice system and the formation of the nation’s first transgender cultural district – the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District!

There is a definite energy in the air around the movement for serious criminal justice reform in the United States. In the midst of all of this energy who is being helped and who is left out? What is criminal justice reform and what are the stories and the specifics about the population affected by an unjust justice system?

Our two experts will focus on the importance of centering incarcerated and formerly incarcerated Black trans women in the movement for criminal jusitce reform. In our own City we are seeing ongoing incarceration and displacement of black and especial black trans folks in the Tenderloin.

Excitingly the City just formed the Compton’s Cultural District – the nations first transgener cultural distirict. We’ll learn more about the plans for the district and the role it can play in fighting injustice.

About our speakers:

Janetta Louise Johnson, Executive Director,
Janetta Louise Johnson is the Executive Director at TGI Justice Project. She is a formerly incarcerated Black transgender woman and has been an activist and advocate in the transgender communities since 1997, when she moved to San Francisco from her hometown of Tampa, Florida. She survived three and a half years in federal prison, and while inside she fiercely and tirelessly advocated for her rights as an incarcerated transgender person. She became politicized through her kinship with Miss Major, her adopted trans mother, and after her release from prison returned to her work with non-profits and social service agencies with a higher compassion for people on the inside of jails and prisons. In 2006, she put her skills as a community organizer, trainer and activist to work as Interim Director of TGI Justice Project, during which she coordinated vibrant grassroots fundraisers to support the organization. In 2014, she became the permanent Executive Director of TGIJP when Miss Major retired from the position.

She co-founded the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, the first transgender cultural district in the country, here in San Francisco in 2016. Janetta is committed to building strategies and interventions to reduce the recidivism rate of the transgender community by providing leadership development and job opportunities to those who are currently being released from custody. She is also a fierce advocate for transgender people who are currently incarcerated, working tirelessly to improve the lives of those currently on the inside through legislative campaigns like the Name and Dignity Act, which enables people in held in California prisons to change their legal name and gender, while also fighting for the abolition of prisons at large. She believes that currently and formerly incarcerated trans people without a voice will be people without hope. She will continue to struggle to instill hope and belief in a better future for every transgender person that she can reach.
Janetta uses she/her pronouns.

Honey Mahogany:

A San Francisco native, drag queen, business owner, and activist, Honey Mahogany first gained international attention as a cast member on Season 5 of the reality television series RuPaul’s Drag Race. Named SF’s best drag queen & cabaret performer by the Bay Area Reporter, Best Drag queen by SF Weekly, and a sought after emcee across the globe, Honey’s more recent work fuzes art with the political. Honey’s work as a drag queen & activist has earned her a commendation from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Sainthood from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and awards from both the Harvey Milk Democratic Club and the San Francisco Young Democrats. She is a founder of and currently serves as the district manager for the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, is Co-President of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, a sitting member of the San Francisco Democratic Central County Committee, a member of the San Francisco Trans Advisory Committee, and is an owner at the Stud, San Francisco’s oldest LGBT bar. Honey currently hosts weekly RuPaul’s Drag Race viewing parties with Sister Roma, and a monthly QTPOC centered party where all are welcome called Black Fridays.