Janetta Johnson

Janetta Louise Johnson (born 1964/1965) is an American transgender rights activist, human rights activist, and prison abolitionist. She is the CEO of the TGI Justice Project. She co-founded the non-profit TAJA's Coalition in 2015. Along with Honey Mahogany and Aria Sa'id, Johnson is a co-founder of The Transgender District, established in 2017. Johnson's work is primarily concerned about the rights and safety of incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated transgender and gender-non-conforming people.

Early life From when she was seventeen or eighteen years old, Janetta Johnson knew that she was a transgender woman and that she wanted to medically transition. She came out as a transgender woman in the 1980s.

In 1997, Johnson moved from her hometown, Tampa, Florida, to San Francisco in order to be mentored by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a transgender rights activist, prison abolitionist, and former director of the TGI Justice Project. Johnson describes Miss Major as her "adopted trans mother" because Miss Major extensively mentored and supported her.

While Johnson was incarcerated, she started fighting for the rights of incarcerated trans people and shifted her activism to mainly working around issues around the incarceration of trans people.

Through bills and policy, Johnson says she is working to ideally reduce the prison industrial complex by 65%.

Economic justice Johnson believes in obtaining economic justice for transgender and gender-non-conforming individuals. She believes that in order to do this, “[transgender people] have to have [their] own businesses, [they] have to have [their] own homes.”

Re-entry program Johnson initiated TGI Justice Project's re-entry program that helps transgender and gender-variant people re-enter society immediately after being released from prison in order to prevent recidivism. One of the major ways she does this is through housing support, which has become an even more prominent issue during the pandemic.

Johnson noted that there was an increase in donations to the TGI Justice Project after the uprising about the murder of George Floyd that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The District encompasses six blocks in the southeastern Tenderloin, San Francisco, and crosses over Market Street to include two blocks of Sixth Street. It contains several historically significant sites, such as the former location of Compton's Cafeteria and the Compton's Cafeteria Riot at the corner of Turk Street and Taylor Street. Turk Street and Taylor Street have been renamed by the District as “Compton’s Cafeteria Way” and “Vikki Mar Lane” respectively. Brian Basinger, the Executive Director of Q Foundation, a non-profit that centers around houseless people living with HIV/AIDS in the Tenderloin, filed a declaration against Group i's plans. Basinger gathered support from the St. James Infirmary, a health clinic for people who do sex work, where Aria Sa'id served as Program Director. They accumulated more support from other community members and organizations, such as Janetta Johnson with the TGI Justice Project. Basinger's initial declaration wasn't successful, and Group i still wanted to go through with their development plans, but Group i actually ended up providing financial support so that they could establish The Transgender District. Cross-dressing was illegal at the time due to anti-masquerading laws, which was the basis for a lot of police brutality and harassment of transgender women. A trans woman interviewed in the documentary Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria could get arrested for having the buttons on the "wrong" side (i.e. the left side of the shirt, where buttons tend to be placed on women's clothing). which ultimately led to the creation of The Transgender District.

The Transgender District's mission is "to create an urban environment that fosters the rich history, culture, legacy, and empowerment of transgender people and its deep roots in the southeastern Tenderloin neighborhood... and to stabilize and economically empower the transgender community through ownership of homes, businesses, historic and cultural sites, and safe community spaces." and she is quoted saying "I believe in creating a space without violence, discrimination, and over-policing; and making sure Black trans women have opportunities for ownership and cultural spaces [where] they feel safe." which was co-sponsored by the TGI Justice Project and successfully passed in October 2017. It is a law that allows transgender people to petition the superior court to change their name and gender marker while incarcerated in California, which Johnson says makes re-entry into society easier.