"Just inside the entrance of New York's new refuge for transgender and queer people - an initiative from the Ali Forney Center (AFC), an organization devoted to housing queer and trans youth - a mantle honoring one of the group's biggest supporters bears the words "travesti", "puta", "bendita" (transvestite, whore, and blessed). These were terms of power for Cecilia Gentili, the late trans and queer rights legend, who died of a fentanyl-laced drug overdose in 2024."
"Located in a century-old mansion on 153rd Street in Harlem, Casa Cecilia provides 20 unhoused queer and trans people at a time with six months of shelter and care in a supportive LGBTQ+-centered setting. "It's almost poetic that this house resembles so much of Gentili's life and so much of what she lived for that we'll be able to honor her legacy and pay tribute to her in this way," Alexander Roque, president and executive director of AFC, told the Huffington Post."
Casa Cecilia is a new refuge in Harlem offering 20 unhoused queer and trans people six months of shelter and supportive, LGBTQ+-centered care in a century-old mansion on 153rd Street. A mantle at the entrance bears the words "travesti", "puta", "bendita" in honor of Cecilia Gentili, who died of a fentanyl-laced overdose in 2024. Cecilia Gentili was a trans Argentine American artist and organizer who moved to New York in 2003, fought for decriminalization of sex work, pushed New York's Gender Non-Discrimination Act, appeared on FX's Pose, and collaborated with the Ali Forney Center. Alexander Roque of the AFC described the house as a reprieve from street life and a bridge to better outcomes, and Casa Cecilia forms part of the AFC's broader program supporting at-risk LGBTQ+ community members.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
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