Casa Cecilia Is The Blueprint For Trans And Queer Resistance

On one of the most beautiful brownstone-lined blocks in the country, there’s a dwelling that will soon be filled with queer and trans young people getting a second chance at life. The Ali Forney Center, a New York institution that has provided beds and services to unhoused queer and trans youth since 2002, just inaugurated a formerly abandoned mansion that will be an oasis of rest and peace for dozens of houseless trans and gender-nonconforming young people.

This is a pretty massive deal when you consider that the Trump administration so far has defunded $2.67 billion from LGBTQ initiatives all across the country, per the Human Rights Watch. Even without the administration’s diabolical actions, queer people have always been disproportionately affected by the housing crisis; trans people are eight times more likely to be houseless than their cis counterparts, per UCLA. A staggering 95% of AFC’s clients are people of color and more than half are seeking refuge from other parts of the country.

On the rainy October morning of Casa Cecilia’s opening, I walked in and was greeted by a mantle honoring Cecilia Gentili, a queer rights activist who passed away in 2024. Above a painting of her, the words “Travesti,” “Puta” and “Bendita” (transvestite, whore and blessed), terms she proudly used to describe herself when she lived, are scribbled in golden letters. The mansion was thoughtfully remodeled with its most important historic details kept intact. It was honest, it was warm and it actually felt like a home.

Council members, activists, and members of Gentili’s chosen family were there, and the overall sentiment was a sigh of relief: Finally, the queer community was getting something nice.

Twenty unhoused queer people will be chosen to live at Casa Cecilia for six months at a time. While at Casa Cecilia, those young adults will have a place to rest and receive medical and mental health services. “Many unhoused individuals, because of a lack of shelter, will spend their nights awake for safety and their days in and out of support and care,” Alexander Roque, the president and executive director of the Ali Forney Center, tells me.

AFC, I learned, receives public grants for certain housing sites and services, but also very much relies on private donations (foundations, individuals, corporations) to fill funding gaps beyond what the public grants cover. The hope is that the six-month period that these young people spend at the house will be enough for them to start preparing and thinking about the next stage of their lives.

The house broke ground in 2020, and according to Roque, the process of building it was an uphill battle from that point forward. Gentili was brought on as a consultant and was involved in the ideation process for the house before it even had a name. A trans Argentine American artist and community organizer who moved to New York in 2003, Gentili fought for the decriminalization of sex work, pushing the passage of the Gender Non-Discrimination Act in New York state (and was also in the legendary FX series ”Pose”).

And while there will never be another, many compared Gentili to a modern-day Marsha P. Johnson in spirit and intention. Her funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral — hilariously condemned by New York’s Archdiocese, who was scandalized by the ceremony — helped cement her as a martyr.

“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,” Roque says. It also continues the promise that Gentili made to many trans young adults, which is that she would protect them — this time, in a house that proudly bears her name.

At the opening, it was impossible to ignore the subtext: that this was a house built for queer people, by queer people, at a time when the most powerful people in the country have all but abandoned us. In our uncertain political climate, this was an example of what a future of community care, regardless of who’s in power, could look like.

Although taking our futures into our own hands may sound excruciatingly daunting, queer people have done it time and time again. “We cared for ourselves at a time when the government turned its back on us during the AIDS crisis, we built pathways, we built health care systems, and we defined chosen family,” Roque tells me. The organization plans to transition into a model that will depend less and less on government assistance, buy property and own land, and use rent money to invest in programs, with the aim to create an ecosystem of self-sustaining queer and trans refuges across the city.

If there’s anything we’ve learned the past few years, it’s that progress and acceptance are not inevitable. We demand progress, and when we don’t get it, we step up and take care of each other.

The opening of Casa Cecilia embodied the spirit of what the house will come to represent. Gia Love, a model and activist who was mentored by Gentili, was there. Gentili’s former partner, who wasn’t scheduled to speak, took to the podium and spoke about his partner’s love and care for others. People laughed and cried of sadness and joy. Shortly after the ribbon cutting, Qween Jean, a trans activist and community mother, broke into a chant that has become a battle cry of trans resistance: “Cecilia! Cecilia! Cecilia!”