It is with tremendous grief and sorrow that we announce the unexpected loss of our beloved friend, sister, caregiver, comrade, and coworker Nona Moselle Conner. Nona’s life was cut short last Thursday at the young age of 37, and we are overcome with shock and pain at her untimely death. Words cannot describe the magnitude of Nona’s significance in our lives, our team, and community will never be the same without her and her gracious light.  

Nona has been a part of our team since 2016, when our community rallied together to establish a paid position for her. Since then, she’s helped bring forth so much brilliance to our DecrimNow campaign, anti-harassment efforts, and our Safe Bar Collective jobs program. In these past couple months, she’d began curating an arts-based storytelling project for sex workers impacted by the pandemic, and was actively facilitating No Justice No Pride house management and mutual aid requests amidst managing her own health and financial challenges. 

She gave endlessly and without hesitation, always reminding us to “be blessed, and a blessing,” because she believed deeply in giving back to her community of Black trans women and sex workers. Though she would sometimes get nervous, she loved speaking out in public against the violence Black trans women faced, and frequently uplifted the humanity of sex workers and interrogated the ways state violence interrupted the livelihood of her people. Nona was a compelling and irreplaceable force that illuminated each space she entered. 

Unfortunately, Nona spent her last days fundraising for herself, oftentimes to find safer housing/reprieve from abusive living situations, take care of her basic & medical needs, and redistribute the funds back to other Black trans women struggling with the same thing. Make no mistake: many systems failed Nona, and in some ways, our own community failed her. Nona deserved care and protection, and material support that was abundant and unconditional. During moments like this, we often hear sentiments like, “love on your people more” or “give people their flowers while they’re here.” This is all true, and with Nona’s passing, we’re calling for our community to do much more than that. We all have a responsibility to go out of our way to make sure Black trans women and sex workers are abundantly cared for – that they have safe housing, the ability to have their material needs more than met, and the autonomy to thrive in all the ways they desire. We owe that to Nona, and to every Black trans woman in our lives. 

Our organization will be pausing internally to continue grieving and recovering, and we will communicate more about our bereavement break details. We will also be releasing details about a community vigil and her funeral services as they come. You can contribute to her ongoing memorial fund here, and add to her digital memorial archive here if you have memories, stories, prayers, and commitments you want to share in Nona’s name.  As heartbroken as we are, we know Nona would want us to continue smiling and being fearlessly hopeful for better days, as she penned in one of her most recent poems: 

“Chins up, smiles on 

It’s time for us to now be strong.

Nothing/No one to hold us back 

We must free our self from fear. Together…

All at once….. Will it be easy? No!!!

But it can be done…

#TeamFearMoMore”