W hen activist and artist Cecilia Gentili died in February at the age of 52, it was instantly apparent in New York City and on global social media how much she meant to the communities that called her Mother. Queer celebrities and grassroots organizers of all kinds had personal pictures to post, depicting them embracing a grinning Cecilia on stages and at political protests. Costume designer Qween Jean spoke for many trans people of color when she posted, “Our chosen family is powerful and we now have a radical ancestor protecting us.
” Over 1,000 of Gentili’s children, peers, and admirers dressed in bright red for a memorial for Gentilli at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, where she was eulogized as “Santa Cecilia, Madre de la Putas” — Saint Cecilia, Mother of Whores. When Enrique Salvo, the Archdiocese of New York, called the service “sacrilegious,” Gentili’s fellow activist Ceyenne Doroshow, who organized the funeral, quickly corrected him: “Cecilia’s life was one of service,” she wrote.
“We can only hope that the Catholic Church, St. Patrick Cathedral Administrators, and its members could live the example that Cecilia set forth.” The queer community has a long history of chosen family, especially in the ballroom scene , where house mothers help fellow trans people of color navigate intense social marginalization — and indeed, Gentili was a prime example.
After emigrating from Argentina to the U.S. when she was 26, Gentili spent several .