Cecilia

When Cecilia Gentili was growing up in Argentina, she felt so different from everyone around her that she thought she might be from another planet. “I think that we are all aliens until we find our communities.” This episode was originally released in 2019. Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, invitations to virtual events, special merch deals, and more. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:25Speaker 02

  This episode contains references to sexual violence. Please use discretion.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  When I was a child, I thought I was an extraterrestrial, that I was a UFO. And I told my grandmother that. It was a really funny story.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  What did she say when you said you were you?

• 1:43Speaker 03

  My brother told me that they found me in a railroad, right? One day, we were crossing a railroad, and my brother told me, "That's where we found you, and Mom took you with us because you were naked on the railroad as a baby." And around the same time, I was kicked out of the bathroom, in the girls' bathroom in school. And I'm from an area of Argentina where there's a lot of UFO activity in the seventies. So I put two and two together and I went to my grandma and I said, Grandma, I think I know what happened.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  I am an alien, that I was left by mistake here, but I belong to a country, to a planet, where all the girls have peepees like me. And my grandmother, being the great grandmother that she was, she says, that makes sense. I'm pretty sure that's true. And we slept under, you know, outside in a huge patio with the trees, fruit trees that she had. And we spent the night outside waiting for, you know, for my family from another planet to come and rescue me.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  And of course, that didn't happen.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Cecilia Gentili was born in 1972 in a very small town in Argentina.

• 3:15Speaker 03

  You know, I was always, you know, using the girls' bathroom. You know, I always had a tendency, sometimes I didn't say that I was a girl, but I always said that I wasn't a boy. That was a constant for me. And around my teenagers' years and adolescence, I started being attracted to other boys. And I thought like, I guess like being gay is the closest thing to what I feel. You know, at the time, it wasn't conversation about trans people.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  And it was not a conversation about being trans. It was no internet, you know. So I thought I was crazy for a long time. And when I went to the big city. You know, to go to college at age seventeen, I met the first trans person that I ever met in my life. And it was like this huge realization of like, you know, first of all, I'm not crazy. Second of all, I may not be a UFO person. I may not be an extraterrestrial. And and there is like, you know,

• 4:43Speaker 03

  it is people like me in the world, you know. So I just verbally almost assaulted this woman because I was like, please, please, please help me, help me, help me. I need you. I need you. I'm like you. I need help. She was like, oh, calm down. And I, you know, she said, okay, you know, I help you. She said, I'm working right now. She was in the street. And she said, I'm working right now. Go to the bar and when I finish working, we'll meet and we'll talk more.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  And that's what I did. I waited all night in the bar. And then she told me, you know, yeah, you know, you can be trans. And it's three things that you need to know.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  You're gonna be a whore. You're gonna get high and you're gonna die young. Those are the three things that you need to know and be clear about before making the decision of transitioning. And I didn't doubt it for a minute. I say, yes, yes, and yes, I'm okay with all of those.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  I thought that, you know, that was the only way to survive, right? It was, you know, it wasn't like the idea of having a job while being trans was not possible. The idea of, you know, being a housewife, you know, and having a husband that takes care of you. It wasn't possible because like anybody, you know, usually all the

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Uh, men that I uh dated at the time were dating me under these extreme shaming, you know, clouds. Were like, uh, they say that they were my boyfriend, just in a, in between, you know, four walls and in, in a room, but nobody will hold my hand in the streets, you know? So, uh, it was like, hey, you know, all these guys wants to have sex with me. Uh, nobody wants to be my boyfriend. So I may as well just get some money out of it, you know, so, and survive.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  So it was more like organically came with the idea of being trans, the idea of being a sex worker. So, uh, it, it was like, you know, it is that, it, it, for me, it was like, this is what the life of a trans person is and I am trans. I, and this is what I have to do. It was also a lot of um, uh, reaffirmation with sex work. Um, you know, when you have like all these, the rest of the world telling you that, you know, that you are wrong, that you are an ovulation, that, uh, you know, you, uh,

• 8:12Speaker 03

  your body is a, a mistake. Uh, and at the same time, you have, uh, all these people paying for your body and for your time. So it was, it was very reaffirming.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  How was the money?

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Um, the money was good. Um, I work a lot, you know, I am, I.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  I would make decent money in the streets, enough to survive. Uh, but not enough to go ahead with certain surgeries that I wanted. Uh, you know, money was enough to pay rent and to eat. Um, but I wasn't making money. Uh, my transition wasn't going where I wanted to go. Uh, my life wasn't going where I wanted to go.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  And, um, interactions with police, uh, and, um, overall, you know, really, um,

• 9:39Speaker 03

  really, really bad experiences. Sex work was so heavily policed in Argentina. Uh, a group of trans women from the city that I'm from were given a reparations pension for all the suffering that the law enforcement made them go through.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  I hope that gives you an idea of what kind of oppression we were going through at the time. It is like, you know, trans women receiving a reparations pension. That's how bad the government feels about the treatment that they gave us. And, you know, it wasn't only just like, you know, being arrested. It was like, you know, being, you know, uh, asked for sexual favors and, and ask for bribes and money and being humiliated. So, you know, I would do anything not to be arrested. I would do any, basically anything not to be arrested.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  When Cecilia was growing up in Argentina, trans people could be arrested for just walking down the street. As she got older, she moved around, trying to find a place where she felt safe and could do her job.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  And I guess neighbors started calling the police because I was around. And I, you know, for a moment, I thought like, you know, I found a place where I can just do what I do without being bothered. And, you know, the police started stopping me. And they, they sexually assaulted. I was sexually assaulted by two officers.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  And I said, like, you know, it's never, it's never gonna be a place where I can do what I do and not have to go through these things. It was like this sense of like, it's not a safe place for me in this, anywhere in this city. And I am just gonna die here. So I thought like, you know, I have to do something with my life now. And that was, you know, when the idea of leaving Argentina,

• 12:38Speaker 03

  trying to build a future came about. And that's how I came to Miami.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Did you think it would be easier to be a sex worker in America?

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought like, I thought it was gonna be people at the airport waiting for me, offering me jobs. That was my idea of the United States. I thought like it were people waving an American flag and saying like, "Welcome," and offering me all their jobs. So I didn't even have to do sex work anymore. And that wasn't the case. I have to say, that was not the case.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  We'll be right back.

• 13:32Speaker 02

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• 15:37Speaker 02

  Cecilia says that when she arrived in Miami, she started looking for jobs right away. She looked for a job in a hair salon, but she didn't have a license and she was undocumented. This was in 2000. She was 27.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  So, you know, whatever got better in terms of me being trans in the United States, got worse in terms of being undocumented. And of course, the only thing that I knew how to do was sex work besides hair, and that's what I did.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Her plan was to work for three months in the United States, make as much money as possible, and then fly home to Argentina just before her visa expired. But four days before her flight home, Cecilia was arrested.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  I got arrested on Washington Avenue in Miami. And I remember, you know, I remember like the girls, you know, the other girls taught me like certain tricks that they're not even true. It's just, it's just, you know, things that you do and say, you know, if you touch the client, if it's a police officer, it's not supposed to let you touch him. It's just totally bullshit. I, you know, I touch. I even had oral sex with police officers. And after we had oral sex, they arrested me. You know, or if you ask them if they're police officers,

• 17:08Speaker 03

  they have to tell you if they're police officers. So, you know, I did my whole, like, you know, list of things to make sure that this guy who stopped me in a taxi, in a yellow taxi, wasn't a police officer. He was the passenger in the taxi. So I went in the taxi and I said, "Are you a police officer?" And he said like, "No, I'm not." And then I touched him and, and he allowed me to touch him. And so I said, "Well, he's not a police officer." And he said, "How much is, you know, for a date?" So I told him how much it was. He says like, "Do you have another friend

• 17:52Speaker 03

  that you can bring with us?" And I said, "No, none of my friends are in the street right now." And...

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Then he stopped the taxi and we got out of the taxi. And the taxi driver came out of the taxi too, and I thought that that was weird. And they arrested me and I said, but you told me that you're not a police officer. And he said, I'm not a police officer, the taxi driver is. And I got arrested and I was, uh, I went to the prison, I guess. And of course, they put me there with the men. I saw the judge and the judge let me go with the...

• 18:46Speaker 03

  I needed to surrender my passport. So I was not able to take my flight. And at that point, I overstayed my visa. So I made a decision to just stay, stay here in the United States. Fully as an undocumented person. And I'm gonna fully dedicate myself to sex work. And that's what I did.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  And I kind of stopped working in the streets mostly. And I focused on ads. I had ads in the paper, I had ads in a special magazine in Miami called Unique Encounters. Really funny name, Unique Encounters. And I, you know, you put pictures there and your phone number, people will call you.

• 19:52Speaker 03

  And then I found the internet, you know, and I found the internet and money started being good and I had, you know, my first breast implants and I had a couple of facial surgeries. I had laser, I had laser in my face. So like, you know, not having facial hair was such a like, amazing moment in my life. So, you know, I started being happy. But so, you know, I was started like, I started making, you know, relationships here. I had

• 20:26Speaker 03

  friends. So, um, uh, it was, you know, it was hard. It was hard. But, um, I, it was better than in Argentina. So I, I wanted to stay here. It was a beautiful community, you know, all my friends that were doing sex work, you know, with me at the same time. You know, they were really good people, you know, they were helping, we were helping each other all the time. Uh, we were supporting each other. Uh, we were like, you know, in

• 21:06Speaker 03

  constant, um, communication, like, you know, this number is gonna call you, don't answer, it's a waste of time, or this guy is gonna try to come and see you, uh, don't see him because he's violent. So we had a network, uh, where we, you know, we're all coworkers, I guess, and, uh, and friends, you know, and we spent time and we cooked together. It was like really nice. So, um, uh, it was times where I said like, this is too much, but it was also good times with, uh, with community.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  And how did life get better when you could start getting your clients online so that you weren't?

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Out on, on the streets, but rather.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, at home, you know.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  At home.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  At home. So for me was, you know, was like, oh, this is great, you know? I just can be at home. I can making, you know, be making my own meals. And if I have a client coming, I just stop and do my client and then eat the food that I cooked myself, you know? Uh, you know, things are different when you're home, you know, you're in your place, things are yours. Um, so, uh, for me, it was, uh, better. Again, you know, um, you know, I was always worried that, you know, uh, uh, a police officer could come and arrest me. You know, it was very common in South Beach that, uh, you know, police would make themselves, uh,

• 22:44Speaker 03

  look like clients, uh, uh, sound, you know, in the phone saying that they were clients. And, um,

• 22:53Speaker 03

  um, they, um, they would come and arrest you. So, you know, sometimes like, you know, uh, I would, you know, be looking in the window to see, you know, who my client was and like, sometimes I would just think like, oh, this guy looks like a, looks like a police officer. Um, and, um, every time I would see a client with a shaved head, I, I associate that with police officers, I guess. So I would never see them, you know, they, I never opened the door.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  She says the internet helped a lot. Cecilia could now look someone up before deciding whether to meet them. And sex workers in Miami could communicate on forums and warn each other about police, violent clients, or clients that wouldn't pay. They would ID clients by phone number in case they'd given a fake name.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  So it was great, you know, life was, uh, much better.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Of course, all of that ended with SESTA and FOSTA.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  SESTA and FOSTA, which stands for the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, are a set of bills that were signed into law in 2018. Under the law, website publishers, including sites like Craigslist, would be responsible if anyone posts ads for sex work on their platforms. The bill's supporters frame this as an important way to curb sex trafficking online. Critics argue that it makes no distinction between victims of sex trafficking and consensual sex workers. One of the immediate effects of the law was that those sites that sex workers use to find clients and communicate with each other started shutting down.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Are sex workers less safe without these types of sites?

• 24:50Speaker 03

  Of course. You know, we don't have the opportunity to, you know, look in the, you know, in our forums and like to see if, you know, the clients that are coming to see us are, you know, not good, you know? And also, like, we're, you know, many of us are not able to advertise. You know, people had to go back to the streets, you know? People that were not used to the streets anymore, you know? And also, like, you know, the fact that it was more sex workers in the streets,

• 25:31Speaker 03

  it gave clients a certain level of leverage, right? Because, you know, sex workers had to, you know, take clients, you know, that they wouldn't otherwise just because, you know, they needed to work. So SESTA and FOSTA, you know, and shutting down the websites, you know, was terrible for the sex workers community. It's really terrible, really, really terrible.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  It seems like not many people understand just how common sex work is. Do you think that's right?

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  We'll be right back.

• 26:32Speaker 02

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• 28:36Speaker 02

  After living in Miami for five years, Cecilia started getting threats that she would be reported to the police as an undocumented immigrant. So she moved to New York.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  I used to live on Mott Street and me and a friend of mine, you know, had apartments right across the hall. And the police went once and they raided her apartment and arrested her. And they were knocking on my door and knocking on my door and knocking on my door and I just didn't open. I was terrified. And, you know, and I looked through the people hall and I, you know, saw how they were taking her. And they were really, they really wanted me too. And I just didn't open. Nobody should have to work or do what they do for a living

• 29:29Speaker 03

  with this terrible fear of being arrested all the time.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Are there fewer clients now?

• 29:39Speaker 03

  I couldn't tell you.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  I haven't been actively working for a couple of years now, but, you know, I am in touch with most of my friends. And like, you know, it is a lot of consensual sex nowadays in forums like Grindr, Tinder and all of that. So I noticed that, you know, it's less clients because it's more opportunities to have sex, consensual sex for free. But of course, that is not regulated. It does not, that's not criminalized, right? But once you exchange money for sex, you are a criminal. So.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  You know, when you play football, you are selling your body for money, right? Just in a way that, you know, you're selling the strength of your body to catch a ball, right? It's nothing different, right? If you know how to cook, you become a chef. I know how to have sex, so that's why I became a sex worker. Um, so, uh, I think like because of the idea of sex is has been, uh,

• 31:09Speaker 03

  painted as something that is sinful and not moral, you know, uh, had created this idea that sex work should not be allowed.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  How much of sex work is talking, making people feel good about themselves and not actually?

• 31:31Speaker 03

  A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of sex work is, is a lot of therapy. I always said that, you know, I should have a social, um, work degree because I have counsel and, uh, listen to, uh, an incredible amount of, uh, people, you know, who, you know, hire me, uh, through sex work and in reality, sex was the least that we did, uh, in our encounters.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  Um, I, uh, you know, I, I encounter all kind of people and, you know, with some of them was also a lot of sex, you know, uh, but with most of them was just that human connection, right? People have need to be connected and to feel comfortable about who they are, you know? Uh, so it is a lot about the connection and sometimes it's about sex too.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Cecilia now lives in Queens. She was granted asylum in 2011. She plans to apply for citizenship next year.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  And I have a very, I don't know what's normal, but in my idea of normality, I have a very normal life. I have a partner. He's wonderful and I love him very much. We get up at seven. I make some breakfast or coffee and he goes to work. And I get ready and I start with my work. And what I do is advocacy. And then I do all kinds of, you know,

• 33:38Speaker 03

  after-work activities and I come back home tired and have dinner with my partner and go to sleep. So that's my life. That's my life nowadays, you know, as another kind of busy.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Today, she's active in efforts to decriminalize sex work in New York. She runs a policy reform organization called Trans Equity, and she leads a support group for undocumented trans Latinas. What do you want to say now to that little girl thinking that she was an alien, seeing all that you've seen now and where you are in your life? What would you say to that little girl?

• 34:23Speaker 03

  I think, I think that we are all aliens until we find our communities, you know? I think, you know, some of us find our community with our own family and some of us don't. So for those that don't find their own community with their own families, it is a family out there and you just have to look for them. And when you find them, you will find your family and you will find your planet somehow where you don't feel like an extraterrestrial.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  So it is a hard but beautiful journey. But the reward of finding your community is wonderful.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  We first released this episode in 2019. Cecilia Gentile became a US citizen a few years after we spoke in 2022. She died on February 6, 2024. Over 1,000 people attended her funeral.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Criminal is created by Lauren Spoor and me. Nidia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sugeko, Lily Clark, Lena Silson, and Megan Conane. This episode was originally mixed by Rob Byers. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julianne Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com and you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com/newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spoor, talking about everything from how we make our episodes, to the crime stories that caught our attention that week, to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to patreon.com/criminal. We're on Facebook at This is Criminal, and Instagram and TikTok at Criminal underscore Podcast. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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