LEADERSHIP BIOS
Cecilia Gentili
Board Co-chair
Cecilia Gentili is an advocate, organizer, and storyteller working at the intersections of sex work, immigrant rights, incarceration issues, and trans liberation. Originally from Argentina, Cecilia came to the United States and survived for 10 years as an undocumented immigrant, gaining a living through sex work. She has years of experience working in direct services with organizations like The LGBT Center and Apicha Community Health Center, which led to her moving into policy work, becoming the Director of Policy at GMHC before creating Trans Equity Consulting to advocate directly for better policy for trans people at the local, state, and federal level. Cecilia is also a founding member of Decrim NY, a coalition working towards the decriminalization, decarceration, and destigmatization of people in the sex trade. Cecilia recently published her epistolary memoir Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist (Little Puss, 2022) and has also performed in the hit FX Show Pose, in her one-woman show The Knife Cuts Both Ways, and in countless storytelling events across the country.
Diana Feliz Oliva
Board Treasurer
Diana Feliz Oliva has worked in the field of social services and public health for over 25 years. Her work began in 1994 with the County of Fresno – Department of Social Services to her position as HIV Community Liaison at Gilead Sciences in 2017, making her the first openly Transgender person hired by Gilead Sciences, Inc. Because of her unique and valuable expertise on Transgender and HIV issues, Ms. Oliva was promoted to Senior Manager in Public Affairs in 2019, in which, she helps develop the TRANScend Community Impact Fund (#1 funder of trans-led orgs in the US) and a national Transgender Community Engagement Strategy by any biopharmaceutical company in history. In March 2021, she has become the Associate Director of Community Engagement & Advocacy in Public Affairs and will launch the first-ever global Transgender Community Engagement Strategy in Latin America. As of September 2022, Ms. Oliva has been named the Public Affairs Lead for Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean Islands and will be tasked for creating community engagement strategies and patient advocacy initiatives for HIV, HepC, and Triple Negative Breast Cancer. A graduate of Columbia University with a master’s degree in Social Work in 2005, her particular interest has been advancing the development of public policy that addresses community-level health and social problems. Turning her daunting personal challenges and barriers into the very basis of her activism, Ms. Oliva has become an effective social advocate and role model. Her work is shown giving voice and visibility to not only the Transgender communities, but also to the multiple, overlapping communities her life has touched.
Queen Victoria Ortega
Board Member
Queen Victoria believes in leadership through service. As a consultant she provides strategy and capacity building to various organizations. She also serves as Queen of The Royal Court and she is President of FLUX, both international networks dedicated to raising the profile of trans and gender non-conforming communities. Queen Victoria Ortega leverages her intersectionality to guide organizations and systems toward transformational change that is both meaningful and effective.
Khloe Rios-Wyatt
President and CEO
Khloe Rios-Wyatt is the President and CEO of Alianza Translatinx, the first and currently the only transgender-led organization in Orange County. This center was created under her leadership to assist with the multiple health and social needs of Transgender people across Orange County. Alianza Translatinx facilitates mechanisms of empowerment for Transgender, Gender non-conforming and Nonbinary people through a community lens to achieve community education and overall empowerment. Khloe serves as a Board Member of PCAF, an organization dedicated to assisting persons living with HIV to meet their needs for food, housing, healthcare and personal support and she has been a valuable team member of several local OC planning bodies. In the past, Khloe has been involved with the Spanish-speaking media (Radio, Newspaper and TV) to raise awareness on Trans-related issues. She also remains involved with the media as a source of information related to Trans awareness. She is recognized at the local, regional and national levels as an expert in the area of Transgender health issues, health education, minority women, cultural competency, community organizing and HIV education. She has received several awards for her contributions to the Trans community.
Schools Attended:
Santa Ana College
California State University Fullerton
Degrees:
B.A Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations
Spanish Minor
Erin Samueli, MA
Board Secretary
Erin Samueli serves as the Director of Social Justice Philanthropy for the Samueli Foundation. She leads the Foundation’s overall Social Justice portfolio with focus on its priorities to support grassroots organizing and organizations led by and for BIPOC and/or communities impacted directly at the intersections of gender/sexual justice, racial, economic and social justice, criminalization, reproductive rights and models for community justice. She also oversees the Foundation’s collaboration with partners and programs that promote diversity, equity, inclusion and access by building empathy, cultural competency and reducing stereotypes. Erin was born and raised in Southern California. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Science Education from Boston University in 2017, then a Master of Arts in Education from Stanford University in 2019. She was a middle school science teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area for a number of years and in her teaching, she focused on equity, anti-racist practices, and hands-on learning experiences. Aside from teaching, Erin began her philanthropy journey by joining the Maverick Collective, where she worked closely with a team in Ethiopia with the goal of integrating adolescent reproductive health care into the school system. Erin is passionate about reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ equality, racial justice, education, the environment, among more. She uses these social justice lenses as ways to view her work with the ultimate goal of leveling the playing field in America, and globally, so philanthropy is no longer a necessity.