Cecilia Gentili, a fierce advocate for transgender people and sex workers and a powerful legislative lobbyist — as well as an author and a bawdy, searing performer — died on Feb.
3 at her home in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn. She was 52. Her death was announced by Peter Scotto, her longtime partner.
He did not specify the cause. Ms. Gentili often joked that she had a master’s degree in being an immigrant, a sex worker, a trans woman and an addict.
She was an expert because she had lived all of those things. She was born in Argentina and had been sexually abused since she was a child.