She was once an illegal sex worker and addict, but she was also a strong advocate for the underprivileged and an alluring storyteller.
Cecilia Gentili passed away on February 3 at her home in Brooklyn’s Marine Park neighborhood. She was a fervent supporter of transgender people and sex workers as well as an effective legislative lobbyist, author, and bawdy, searing performer. She was 52 years old.
Her longtime lover Peter Scotto announced her passing. He did not specify the cause.
Ms. Gentili often joked that she had a master’s degree in being an addict, trans woman, sex worker, and immigrant. Because she had experienced all of those things, she was an authority.
She was sexually exploited since she was a young child and was born in Argentina. She claimed that the only job she had been able to find as a transgender woman in Argentina was trafficking. In 2000, she emigrated from South America to the US in search of safety and a better quality of life. That did not happen. Certainly not at first.
She was impoverished, trafficked for prostitution in the United States, and had a cocaine addiction. She ended up in the women’s hospital at Rikers Island after being arrested numerous times, where, according to her, she was raped and beaten.
Her next assignment was immigration detention, but there, like at Rikers, there were no secure facilities for a transgender woman, so the government sent her home—to her trafficker—with an ankle bracelet to monitor her whereabouts. She was able to find housing in a rehabilitation center thanks to an immigration case worker, and after 17 months in it, she was clean.
After recovery, Ms. Gentili’s next stop was the Center on West 13th Street in Manhattan, a community hub for L.G.B.T.Q. residents. She liked to talk about how her coaches had assisted her in writing her resume. She realized that her sex work had given her a variety of marketable skills. She excelled at customer service, was excellent on the phone, and was skilled at timing.
