The Newark LGBTQ Center needs to raise funds to support private investigative costs and costs associated with the protection of Ashley’s family and their rights, health and welfare. Community work continues to pursue justice for Ashley and others who have been ignored by the systems that are supposed to protect them. Funding disparities mean that financial support from private citizens all over the world is necessary to meet these needs. The tireless advocates need your monetary support.
Months after her death, the police ruled Ashley’s death a suicide, despite an incomplete autopsy report. The case is now being reviewed by the Essex County’s Prosecutor’s Office - Homicide Unit - because of the pressure the community brought to bear on the Newark Police Divisions. Questions remain as to how Ashley actually died while in housing and care of the YMCA, an agency that provides emergency housing and services to homeless persons and families.
Ashley’s death certificate says the cause of death is “pending”. Not one LGBTQ organization was aware of Ashely’s death until the Newark LGBTQ Community Center became involved and demanded a full investigation of the circumstances surrounding Ashley’s death and demanded that Ashley’s family be treated with respect and given information as to what happened to Ashley. This has taken months---and hundreds of phone calls. Violence against Black Trans women is a problem in this country and it is a problem in Newark, New Jersey
The way this case was handled, coupled with the absence of notifying the family, and the delay in responding to the family and the community means that if Ashley were a victim of a crime, then there could have been someone who has presented a danger to Black Trans women of our community all of this time, and no one would have known.
Not only does the Newark LGBT Center need funds to help seek justice for Ashley, but funds are also needed to aid the many other lives affected in our community due to the absence of justice being pursued despite violent and inhumane acts being committed and aimed at the LGBTQ+ community—especially against trans women and men of color. Trans women of color , in particularly, experience employment and housing discrimination at incredible rates - and we help do what we can. As an example, we are helping with a case now of a gender queer person who is an immigrant and who was illegally evicted from their home.
This GoFundMe campaign has been set-up to provide more resources in the LGBTQ+ Community to address these needs and issues immediately and to advance justice not only for Ashley, but for all LGBTQ+ people who do not have the individual resources it takes to pursue holding the police and other public officials and systems responsible for unfair treatment and denial of equal rights and in the providing of healthcare, housing, police response, safety, and other necessary services. Please click the link below to help us move forward:
NEWS UPDATE
OCTOBER 16, 2020
by Jasmin Singer, Organizer
This is a call to action and action takes resources - we need your help.
From Beatrice Simpkins, Director of the Newark LGBTQ Center:
"I want to thank everyone who has donated to the social justice work we are doing on behalf of Ashley Moore and Trans Black women who are dying violent, mysterious, often uninvested deaths across this country. With the funds donated to date, the family has been able to secure investigative expertise to try to find out the true circumstances of Ashely’s death and to continue the fight to hold the police and the emergency housing program where Ashley lived accountable. But we need more resources as the effort must continue and to ensure the Essex County Prosecutor’s office continue the investigation into her death. We are $20,000 short of reaching our goal of $35,000 which was started through the GoFundMe campaign in August 2020.
I am asking for your help, I need your help - so that together, we honor the life to Ashely, only 26 years old at the time of her tragic death on a public street in Newark. We must continue to work for justice for Ashley, her mother, father, and brother and protect the lives of Trans people. The murder of Sakia Gunn, a young, gender non-conforming Black lesbian in Newark in 2003 a is what inspired the creation of the Newark LGBTQ Center as we answered the communities call to action to protect LGBTQ lives, especially of our youth and young adults. 17 years later, LGBTQ lives, especially for Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and Latinex people are still not honored, protected, and valued as all other lives and Ashley’s death is evidence of the need to continue the fight for equal justice and safety.
This work is very personal for me. I will never forget my first conversation with Ashley’s mother Starlet Carbins and hearing her pain, anguish, and frustration at losing her daughter and the way in which her death was not treated with respect by the police and other public officials. We are working hard to ensure that never again will a Transwoman’s life be lost tragically and violently and the family have to find out their child has died through social media posts. Trans lives matter!
If we do not do this work, tell me who will? When I say we – I mean the Center and you. You are an important part of the radical empathy that it will take to confront unequal treatment that LGBTQ people experience and hold public systems accountable. Already, 31 Transgender women have been murdered and many more have been victims of crimes, many of which go unreported, uninvested, and unsolved. This work is extremely important here in Newark and New Jersey and the Newark LGBTQ Community Center is committed to the work of social justice for LGBTQ people, especially LGBTQ Black Lives – they matter to us and they should matter to everyone.
Silence will not protect us- it will not create safe communities for LGBTQ people to live in, have families, go to work, and just be. Silence will not hold public officials and public systems accountable. I need a loud roar from the humanity I know lives in your hearts – help us to reach our goal – help us to save lives – help us to build a better, safer, community. LGBTQ people, especially people of color, continue to be harassed, victimized through bias crimes, afraid in their own communities, and denied basic rights such housing and other services. We are losing Transwomen of color to violence, racism, and transphobia and that is something we must work together to change. So please join in this work, answer this call to action, and let us reach our goal within the next 30 days. To see more about Ashley and the Newark LGBTQ Community Center, go to
https://justiceforashleymoore.org.
Twitter, FB, Instagram daily message: These messages may need to be shortened depending on the platform limitations.
Call to Action - Ashley Dean Moore – a 26 year-old Trans Black woman found dead under mysterious circumstances on the street in Newark. NJ. The community demands more be done to protect and honor the lives of Trans people and especially Trans people of color. The murders and assaults committed against Trans men and women continue to climb – this is a call to action – we need your help in doing this social justice work – please go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/TheDeathofAshleyMoore and donate today! Do it in honor of Ashley.
https://justiceforashleymoore.org
#BlackTransLivesMatter
#Death of Ashley Moore
#Justice for Ashley Moore
#Newark LGBTQ Community Center
NEWS UPDATE
AUGUST 12, 2020
Thank you all so much for the donations you've made so far, and for the shares.
Here is some press that has come as a result of our work thus far:
https://www.nj.com/essex/2020/08/advocates-questioned-black-transgender-womans-death-now-cops-are-reviewing-the-case.html
https://www.them.us/story/family-of-ashley-moore-demand-justice/amp
https://dailyvoice.com/new-jersey/lyndhurst/police-fire/newark-trans-womans-death-was-ruled-suicide-heres-why-authorities-are-reopening-the-case/792323/
https://www.rlsmedia.com/article/newark-police-review-death-woman-ruled-suicide
https://www.out.com/transgender/2020/8/10/calls-investigation-death-ashley-moore-black-trans-woman
Because of this work, the Newark Department of Public Safety announced that the city's police department will conduct a review of Ashley Moore's death by the county's Homicide Task Force.
Thank you for all of your work and for caring. Let's continue to get this out there until we create #justiceforashleymoore.
Please direct questions or to reach out with information, to: The Newark LGBTQ Center
Ashley Moore was a 26-year-old Black trans woman who was found dead in Newark with strangle marks on her neck, but there's been no police investigation. Let's demand one. #JusticeforAshleyMoore JusticeforAshleyMoore.org » tweet this / template