Individual | Inducted 2025
Reyna Ortiz, an Indigenous Mexican and Caribbean Boricua woman of trans experience, has dedicated her life to advocacy and activism in the LGBT community, promoting HIV prevention, supporting LGBTQ+ youth, assisting homeless individuals, and advocating for the rights of trans and gender diverse populations.
Coming out at age 14 in 1994 while in high school, Ortiz felt “if they push me out of here, they will push me out of everywhere.” She began to speak and initiate education sessions to her classmates about LGBTQ history and participate in theatre as openly “gender variant.” She was crowned Prom Queen by her graduating class, proving that remaining true to yourself will allow people to understand and accept you authentically.
After being introduced to the educational work of HIV prevention at the CORE Center, she walked the streets of Chicago passing out condoms and testing information to trans sex workers. As program director at the agency for 11 years, she has assisted thousands of LGBTQ+ youth to navigate the challenges of queer existence in the City of Chicago. As a former sex-worker, she empathetically observes and listens to her community. For almost eight years she has been a housing assessor, processing applications for young people experiencing homelessness. She has connected more than 600 participants from homelessness and housing instability to a multitude of housing resources. And for almost four years Reyna has facilitated a trans incarceration group within the Cook County jail system, where she created a curriculum and tried to minimize the cycles of recidivism for trans women by connecting them to resources when they are released.
A respected speaker and facilitator, Ortiz has presented at the Equality Federation in Portland on the decriminalization of sex work and its impact on trans and gender diverse populations and at Kent School of Law in Chicago on dismantling laws that affect marginalized communities. Most recently, she appeared before the Illinois State Legislature on behalf of HB2542 and as part of Chicago Mayor Brandson Johnson’s Transfemicide ordinance designed to ensure protection and resources for Chicago residents and visiting individuals of trans experience. She is the author of “T Stands for Truth: In Search of the Queen.”