Cecilia Chung
Public Speaker, Life Coach, and Strategist in San Francisco, California
Cecilia Chung, Senior Strategist of the Transgender Law Center, is internationally recognized as a civil rights leader, advocating for HIV/AIDS awareness and care, LGBT equality, and social justice. She is currently a member of the San Francisco Health Commission and the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, is the President of the US People Living with HIV Caucus as well as co-chair of the Amsterdam-based Global Network of People Living with HIV.
An immigrant from Hong Kong, Cecilia has lived in San Francisco for over 30 years where she has worked locally and globally to advance equality and justice. During that time, she has broken ground in a number of ways including: being the first transgender woman and first Asian to be elected to lead the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration; the first transgender woman and first person living openly with HIV to Chair the San Francisco Human Rights Commission; and, an architect of the nation's most ambitious publicly funded program addressing economic justice within the transgender community.
Her community service spans over two decades. In 1994, she was a member of San Francisco's Transgender Discrimination Taskforce which documented widespread discrimination against transgender people through a groundbreaking report. The work of the Taskforce led the City to adopt many pioneering anti-discrimination ordinances and policies. During her tenure as President of the SF Pride Board, she led the organization in achieving a new standard of inclusion and excellence.
In 2002, she joined the Board of the Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center and consults with them on an innovative mobile HIV testing project for transgender youth. In 2004, as a founding producer of Trans March, she helped organize one of the world's largest annual transgender events which has since been replicated in cities across the U.S. In 2005, she became the first Deputy Director of the Transgender Law Center and is widely credited with shaping the organization's mission and programs. In 2011, she served on California Attorney Gen