Remembering Cecilia Gentili

Board Chair (2022–2024)

Cecilia’s passion and advocacy continue to inspire our work. Her legacy is forever woven into the fabric of this movement.

Cecilia Gentili was an advocate, organizer, and storyteller working at the intersections of sex work, immigrant rights, incarceration issues, and trans liberation. Originally from Argentina, Cecilia came to the United States and survived for 10 years as an undocumented immigrant, gaining a living through sex work. She had years of experience working in direct services with organizations like The LGBT Center and Apicha Community Health Center, which led to her moving into policy work, becoming the Director of Policy at GMHC before creating Trans Equity Consulting to advocate directly for better policy for trans people at the local, state, and federal level. Cecilia was also a founding member of Decrim NY, a coalition working towards the decriminalization, decarceration, and destigmatization of people in the sex trade. Cecilia recently published her epistolary memoir Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist (Little Puss, 2022) and has also performed in the hit FX Show Pose, in her one-woman show The Knife Cuts Both Ways, and in countless storytelling events across the country.