Award of Excellence: (re)Becoming Mohagany
Mohagany Foster was released from New Hanover Correctional Center in Wilmington, N.C. on November 8, 2022 after a year-long sentence. As a trans woman, the county housed her in a men’s facility against her wishes. Finally released, Mohagany is now working toward reclaiming her female identity in the real world. She first found housing in northern Durham through the LGBTQ+ Center until they decided they couldn't support her anymore. Without the Center, she now lives in a hotel and has a part-time job with the Orange County Rape Crisis Center as a response caller. However, with an inconsistent paycheck, she works to scrape together her room fee every single day, always unsure if she'll have to resume life on the streets.
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Mohagany stands outside her current motel after being forcibly removed from the previous one. She finally found a job working at a rape crisis center, a job she knows she can bring a lot to after enduring sexual assault and harassment throughout her time in prison and as a transgender woman on the streets of Raleigh. With the new job, she is working every day to find a real place to rent and build a better future for herself. As a former inmate, transgender woman, and Black women, the odds have always been stacked against her, but she remains positive that her previous stay in prison will be her last.
