When Argentine-born transgender advocate Cecilia Gentili suddenly passed away at her home last February in Brooklyn, New York, the loss to the queer community was great.

Gentili had fought hard in her career for the rights of trans people and sex workers. She held positions at many New York City–based HIV and LGBTQ nonprofits, including GMHC and Apicha, as well as Callen-Lorde Health Center, where she founded a free clinic for sex workers. She even filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s removal of nondiscrimination protections for gender identity in the Affordable Care Act. A woman of many talents, she was featured as Ms. Orlando in the landmark television series Pose.

To honor her legacy, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the educational arm of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), has partnered with Trans Equity Consulting, the organization Gentili founded in 2019, to establish what they hope to be an annual grant. The award goes to a trans organization to help trans women of color, sex workers, immigrants and the formerly incarcerated find their footing.

The first grant is awarded to Alianza Translatinx, a California-based trans advocacy organization. The group is the first trans-led organization by trans people of color in Orange County, California. According to its website, Alianza Translatinx seeks to uplift the trans and gender-nonconforming community members to ensure and foster inclusion and unity through education, community empowerment, and social justice. 

“We’re not tying the scholarship to any deliverables, and that’s intentional,” said Tori Cooper, director of HRC’s Trans Justice Initiative. “We believe, in good faith, that any organization that receives the scholarship will use it in the best interest in the community.”

Cooper also mentioned the importance of supporting these kinds of groups. “Organizations that are trans focused and Spanish speaking, or Hispanic or Latinx focused, they often don’t get the same amount of shine and publicity that other organizations do,” she said. “Cecilia was someone who was very, very proud of her heritage and incorporated that into all of her work.”

Cooper said that there is great hope that the grant will continue far into the future, supporting many Latinx trans organizations. “The goal and the impact is to honor Cecilia,” she said.

Gentili was twice a POZ 100 honoree. She was in the 2019 list, which celebrated trans, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary HIV advocates. She was also in the 2022 list, which highlighted Latino HIV advocates. Click here to read the POZ obituary of Gentili.