Remembering Our Dead

Cecilia Gentili

Cecilia died from an overdose. After her memorial service, disparaging remarks made by the New York Archdiocese about her funeral sparked public outrage.

In September 2024 Michael Kuilan, 44, and Antonio Venti, 52, pled guilty to distributing the heroin and fentanyl that caused her death.

In February, friends and family gathered to mourn the unexpected death of beloved trans activist, Cecilia Gentili. This month two people have been charged Monday for allegedly

Text messages, cell site data, and other evidence showed that 52-year-old Antonio Venti of Long Island sold Gentili drugs on Feb. 5, and Brooklyn resident, Michael Kuilan, 44, supplied Venti with the deadly narcotics, federal prosecutors said. Law enforcement officials searching Kuilan’s home also found hundreds of baggies of fentanyl, a handgun and ammunition, according to Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Her death at age 52 drew significant attention. Cecilia, an Argentinian immigrant, was a renowned activist, advocating for immigrants, the transgender community, sex worker rights and people living with HIV.

Controversy around her funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral sparked outrage from the New York Archdiocese, which called the funeral “sacrilegious and deceptive.” Apparently, the diocese didn’t do a background check to determine if Cecilia deserved to be honored in this space. Even in death, she was a powerful advocate for visibility and acknowledgment.

“Cecilia’s immaculate work and the way she touched so many hearts and lives made her worthy of sainthood. Cecilia deserved this historic honor of the monumental funeral service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and to be cemented in history as a mother of multiple movements –– of sex worker, immigration, trans, and affirming health care movements,” said Oscar Diaz, the director of communications at Trans Equity Consulting, an organization that Gentili founded. “Her wit, creativity, humor, and grace will be missed by the generations she mothered.”

Cecilia was born on Jan. 31, 1972, in Gálvez, a city in northeastern Argentina. She eventually made her way to the United States and experienced multiple levels of dehumanizing oppression in her struggle to survive. You can read the full news obituary at them and the New York Times I cannot begin to do justice to this woman. In 2019, she founded Trans Equity Consulting, a development consulting firm that sought to center that according to them was “paying trans people to be experts on their own experiences.” Her voice gives rise to many other voices, something we should acknowledge by not only seeking justice for her death but listening to trans people.

She was poisoned. Yes, she was using heroin. But that doesn’t mitigate that these two men allegedly laced the heroin with a known deadly substance. Of course heroin users don’t deserve to be poisoned. She was killed by greedy, vicious, and callous profiteers with no regard for her magnificent life or the lives of the others who bought their tainted drugs. Those whose names, honestly, will not make the NYT or draw ire or an acknowledgment from any Catholic leader. Undoubtedly the people I think Cecilia would be most concerned about – people who suffered at the hands of a hostile world and villainous humans.

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https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/09/25/cecilia-gentili-trans-death-charged-guilty-new-york/

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https://gazette.com/news/wex/suspects-charged-in-drug-death-of-transgender-activist-cecilia-gentili/article_8808771d-413f-5b32-8c7f-eae136b4dfdc.html

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Gentili

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3BLkJaO8Os/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AONVpKerJ5g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK_r8o0JvtM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsPwz3CpPow

Report added: 22 Oct 2024. Last updated: 16 Nov 2024

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