Transgender History Month: Cecilia Chung’s Fight for Trans Health and Justice
For decades, Cecilia Chung has worked to advance transgender rights, HIV/AIDS awareness and health equity, turning her own experiences with discrimination into a career of advocacy and public service.
Born in Hong Kong in 1965, Chung immigrated to the United States with her family in 1984, initially settling in Los Angeles before moving to San Francisco. She began her gender transition in her early 20s. After losing her job, she experienced homelessness and later learned that she was living with HIV. Those experiences would help shape her commitment to advocating for transgender people and people living with HIV.
Chung became involved in San Francisco’s Transgender Discrimination Task Force in the 1990s. The task force documented discrimination faced by transgender people and helped spur local anti-discrimination protections.
Chung went on to work in HIV testing, housing and social services, bringing firsthand understanding of the barriers facing members of her community to her advocacy.
Her leadership has broken barriers along the way. Chung became the first transgender woman and first Asian person elected to chair the board of San Francisco Pride. She was also the first transgender woman and first person openly living with HIV to lead the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. In 2004, she helped organize the first San Francisco Trans March, and she later became the first deputy director of the Transgender Law Center.
Chung’s work eventually reached the national level. President Barack Obama appointed her to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in 2013. In 2015, she founded Positively Trans, an initiative created to address inequities and stigma affecting transgender people living with HIV, particularly people of color.
During Transgender History Month, PFLAG Los Angeles honors Cecilia Chung for helping make transgender people more visible in public health, policy and civil rights, and for building a career around ensuring that trans people can advocate for themselves and their communities.
