The Mahogany Project Celebrates Four Years of Serving Houston’s BIPOC Trans Community

By Megan Smith

Four years ago this month, Houstonian Verniss McFarland III saw a personal dream realized—the founding of the Mahogany Project. The fledgling non-profit organization set out with a powerful mission—to bridge the gap between empowerment and education in Black and Brown LGBTQIA+ communities.

During the organization’s early days, McFarland aimed to tackle a wide variety of care—HIV services, mental health care, and housing needs, among others—for the full LGBTQIA+ community. However, after “witnessing the tokenization of Black and Brown bodies by white organizations”—Black and Brown trans bodies, in particular—McFarland recognized it was time for a shift in the Mahogany Project’s focus. “The mission is now, ‘The Mahogany Project aims to reduce social isolation, stigma, and acts of injustice in TQLGB+ Communities of Color,’” McFarland says. “[We were originally] putting trans folks at the end of that, when our work was really rooted in the disparities, the stigma, and the multiple deaths that had transpired to trans bodies.”

“Now, we put the ‘T’ first because we are focusing on trans lives and prioritizing individuals who exist along the [trans] spectrum,” McFarland continues. “Then, we have the ‘Q,’ because now days, a lot of people of color are identifying as queer individuals and they are stepping out of that realm of identifying as gay because that seems to be a space that is mostly occupied by cis, gay, white males and it doesn’t really leave a lot of space for people of color.”

While the landscape for many in the LGBTQ community has dramatically changed for the better since the Mahogany Project’s inception in 2017, McFarland emphasizes that, for the Black and Brown trans folks the organization primarily serves, the threat of violence, among other challenges, persists. “[The death of] Chyna Doll Dupree shifted something inside of me and activated something at the same moment,” McFarland told Spectrum South in a November 2017 interview. “I didn’t want to just wait for trans people to be murdered due to anti-trans violence. I wanted to honor them and come together in spaces that we’re all welcome in.” Reflecting on this statement today, McFarland points out that, “in 2020, even in a pandemic, seven [known] trans individuals, most of whom were Black, were killed during Pride season alone—a season we wouldn’t even have if it weren’t for trans, femme-bodied individuals.”

The concept of not only honoring those trans lives that have been lost, but celebrating and supporting trans folks who are alive, living their truths, and making great impact on the community, has been integral to the Mahogany Project’s work since its very start. This is an area where other organizations fall short, says McFarland. “One of the ladies who is part of our sister organization, Save Our Sisters United, talked about how, before she left and moved to L.A., she reached out to a multitude of AIDS-service organizations and community-based organizations to get support because she had been fired from her job,” McFarland shares. “She needed someone to help her pay her rent for just one month, and AIDS service organizations, particularly, would not help her because she was not living with HIV. That’s so disheartening because we know that 44 percent of Black women of trans experience are currently living with HIV—which is almost half of the population—but we don’t think about how we marginalize them in care through our service organizations, pushing folks out to participate in [high-risk work]. Then we turn around and say we want to end HIV by 2030, but how is that possible if you’re not supporting individuals who are not living with HIV to ensure that they don’t contract HIV?”

Creating events and spaces for Black and Brown trans folks neglected in these ways and others is a top priority for McFarland and the Mahogany Project team. The organization’s signature event, the once-named Trans Empowerment and Alliance Party, has since evolved into Black Trans Empowerment Week, which McFarland describes as “seven full days of pure empowerment.” “It’s one of the best family reunions you’ll ever attend,” McFarland says. “Even if it’s just for this week, we are going to bring so much life into you for this week. This is going to carry you through the whole next year.”

“We focus on building intentional family bonds and decreasing social isolation,” McFarland adds. “We know that trans and queer people experience a lot of social isolation around race, gender identity, religion, and not being able to live in your full autonomy most of the time. We have to [express ourselves] a lot of the time in our house or in quiet—especially while experiencing a pandemic. Imagine a trans person already experiencing social isolation because of body dysmorphia, and then combining that with a pandemic and how that can further catapult them into social isolation. It is so crucial to break down those walls.”

Although the Mahogany Project had to temporarily shift to virtual organizing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, McFarland credits the Project’s team—Joelle Bayaa-Uzuri, Crystal Townsend, Darrien Dyrell, Joyah Hackney, Sara Razack, Marnina Miller, Adonis Darling, and Ashley Rosenberg—for helping to make 2020 one of the organization’s most successful years despite the circumstances. “In 2020, we received our largest grant to date,” McFarland shares. “The people that I work with are so resilient. This would not have been possible without them. It’s a testament to how people of color always have to be resilient despite the circumstances presented to us.”

To celebrate the Mahogany Project’s four-year anniversary, the organization will be hosting a virtual birthday party on April 24, 2021, at 1:00 p.m. The event will be live streamed on Facebook from the Normal Anomaly Initiative’s BQ+ Center for Liberation and will feature a variety of special guests. Plus, as part of the celebration, McFarland will be sending out self-care kits to the community featuring the newest Mahogany Project swag (complete with the organization’s revamped logo). “Only four years out, we’re still here and we’re still growing,” McFarland says. “And it’s looking and feeling amazing. We still need community to continue to engage with us now and into the future.”

According to McFarland, this support is vital to realizing the Mahogany Project’s future goals—including hosting a community field day, a fall bazaar, and, perhaps most importantly, securing a physical space for the organization’s operations. “A physical space will help us serve these individuals better and more collectively,” McFarland says, noting that the Mahogany Project is actively funding for such a space via GoFundMe. “A physical space allows people to come in and receive multiple services at one time, versus having to do a lot of this work over the phone, Zoom calls, and emails. We’re trying to ensure we provide space for individuals who look like us, who exist like us.”

To learn more about the Mahogany Project, visit themahoganyproject.org, and follow on the organization on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. To donate to the Project’s Annual Building Fund, visit the organization’s GoFundMe page.