Black History Month - Black Trans Women - February 22nd

Today, I want to highlight Janetta Johnson, a Black transgender woman whose work has focused on housing, safety, and prison justice. Janetta Johnson is a San Francisco–based community leader and the Chief Executive Officer of the Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP). She has worked for years advocating for incarcerated transgender people and for trans individuals navigating reentry after prison, areas where discrimination and violence are especially severe. Much of her work centers on very practical needs such as housing, legal assistance, and protection from abuse within detention systems. Her advocacy is grounded in lived experience. Johnson has spoken openly about surviving homelessness, criminalization, and incarceration earlier in her life, which shaped her commitment to helping others avoid the same outcomes. Through organizing, public education, and community programs, she has helped push conversations about transgender rights beyond visibility and into issues of safety, housing stability, and dignity, particularly for Black trans women who are disproportionately affected by incarceration and housing insecurity.