Civil Rights Leader
San Francisco Human Rights Commission
Cecilia Chung is nationally recognized as a civil rights leader, advocating for HIV/AIDS awareness and care, LGBT equality, and social justice. Cecilia is currently serving on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. She is a member of the Board of Directors of a variety of organizations, including Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Diseases (WORLD), Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS North America (GNP+ NA), and Just Detention International (JDI).
An immigrant from Hong Kong, Cecilia has lived in San Francisco for over 20 years where she has worked locally and internationally 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 nearly 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 currently 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 General Kamala Harris’s Civil Rights Enforcement Working Group.
As an Asian transgender woman living with HIV, she has dedicated herself to ending stigma, discrimination, and violence in all communities.