Honey Mahogany Appointed Head of San Francisco's Office of Transgender Initiatives

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RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Honey Mahogany has been appointed as the executive director of the Office of Transgender Initiatives (OTI) in San Francisco, under Mayor London Breed’s administration.

Breed announced Mahogany’s appointment on Thursday in a press release. Her position will be effective starting May 6. The OTI was established in 2017 and “advocates for and uplifts the voices and needs of trans and gender nonconforming San Franciscans by acting as a bridge between communities and local government in the pursuit of equity,” according to the press release. Per the Bay Area Reporter, Mahogany’s appointment comes after Breed passed her over two years ago for the position of District Six supervisor, giving the position instead to Matt Dorsey, who was a chief spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Chief.

Mahogany will assume the role at the OTI just after ending her time as the first Black trans chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, a position she held starting in 2021. According to the Reporter, that made her one of the highest ranking Black LGBTQ+ Democrats in California. Before that, the San Francisco native had decades of advocacy and activism for LGBTQ+ people under her belt. That includes organizing to help create San Francisco’s Transgender District, helping found Drag Story Hour, helping to save the iconic gay bar The Stud, and much more, according to the press release. Beyond community organizing, Mahogany has also served as the community mental health director at the Rainbow Community Center of Contra Costa County, an outreach and residential counselor for Larkin Street Youth Services, and as district director and chief of staff for State Assemblymember Matt Haney.

In a statement in the press release, Mahogany called the appointment “an honor,” and expressed her gratitude to Breed. “After two decades of community-based work and legislative experience, I look forward to leveraging all I have learned over the years in service of this office and the entire transgender, gender non-conforming, intersex, and 2-spirit (TGNCI2S) community,” she said. “I’m especially excited to be leading an extraordinary team of trans staff at the Office of Transgender Initiatives (OTI), and to work alongside longtime community leaders to continue our fight for equity and to ensure that San Francisco continues to be a sanctuary city for the trans community."

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