Ali Forney

Forney was a peer counselor of and advocate for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and was killed on the street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBT youth was named after Forney when it opened in New York City in June 2002.

When Carl Siciliano started a center for homeless LGBT youth in New York in 2002, he named it the Ali Forney Center (also known as AFC) in Forney's memory. The center opened in June 2002. It serves mostly Manhattan and Brooklyn youth aged 16 to 24 years, providing them with safe shelter and other help in addition to counseling for their families where needed.

At 4 a.m. on December 5, 1997, Forney was found by the police shot to death on the sidewalk in front of a housing project on East 131st Street in Harlem. According to The New York Times Forney was the third young transgender sex worker murdered in Harlem in fourteen months. The killing has never been solved.

Proudly HIV-negative, Forney became good at peer counseling and promoted safety, carrying a pocketful of condoms and offering them to drug dealers. Forney said, "I became a peer educator because I see so many HIV-infected people on the stroll. Even now, there are people who don't know how to use condoms." In 1996, Forney was invited to San Francisco, California, to tell social workers about the needs of homeless transgender youth.

Ali He'shun Forney (April 12, 1975 – December 5, 1997) was an African-American gay and transgender youth who also used the name Luscious.