Through a Gender Lens 2026: The Economic Security of Women and Girls in Forsyth County was produced using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework that centers lived experience alongside data. This report, commissioned by The Women’s Fund of Winston-Salem, was a collaboration between Forsyth Futures, Action4Equity, and a cohort of women and people with lived experiences aligned with womanhood from across Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. This report was shaped from start to finish by that cohort, who helped define what thriving means, identified the issues that mattered most, and interpreted the findings alongside researchers.
The report examines economic conditions across five focus areas: access to childcare, affordable housing, equitable education, fair wages and employment, and the broader conditions that shape thriving, with particular attention to the disparities experienced by Black and Latine women. Because much of the available quantitative data leaves entire experiences invisible, especially for LGBTQ+ people, undocumented women, low-income families, youth aging out of foster care, children with special needs, and others whose identities don’t fit neatly into existing datasets, the report also features a series of guest columns from community members with direct, lived expertise. Each columnist was compensated for their contribution and wrote in their own voice, weaving personal essay alongside the report’s data to surface what numbers alone cannot show.