JoAnne Keatley was born in the Colonia Roma section of Mexico City in 1951. Her parents, separated at the time of her birth, were Maria Albina Lopez Gojon and Jaime Gritzewsky. She is the fourth child of seven offspring born to Maria. When she was four her mother emigrated to the U.S. in order to attempt to seek a better life for her children. Ms. Keatley and her brother were left “internados” at the Colegio Franco Inglez and her sisters were placed in the care of a convent in Mexico City. In 1958 her mother returned to Mexico in order to reunite the family.

Crossing the border initially at Corpus Christi, Ms. Keatley and her siblings were undocumented for the first several years they lived in the U.S. In 1961 her mother arranged for a legal immigration of her five children born in Mexico. She did so by obtaining the services of an immigration attorney who instructed the family to re-enter the U.S. via San Isidro, this time with proper entry documents.

When she and her siblings first arrived in the U.S. they were definitely a minority in Los Angeles, being the first Latinos to enroll in their elementary school in Eagle Rock. She worked along her mother’s side, making piñatas, cascarones and flores de papel to sell at Olvera St., cleaning motel rooms, and setting up flea market booths in order to assure there were tortillas, frijoles and arroz on the table. Theirs was not an easy survival but she never felt deprived or poor, rather she was always encouraged to seek out opportunities and she has continued to do so throughout her life.

In 1980 she completed gender reassignment surgery with Dr. Donald Laub at the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic. Unlike many transgender women, her mother was at her side in support of the process. In 1999, while still in graduate school she co-founded Health Studies for People of Color at the Center for AIDS preventions Studies, UCSF with Dr. Tooru Nemoto.

In 2000 Ms. Keatley received her Master of Social Welfare degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She has directed multiple NIDA and SAMHSA transgender projects and manages a diverse staff of fourteen. She served as a member of the Ryan White HIV Planning Council Santa Clara County from 1995-1998. Currently she is on the Board of Directors of New Leaf and SalvaSIDA and on the faculty of the San Francisco AIDS Education and Training Center. Ms. Keatley is Co-Chair and a founding member of San Francisco Transgender Empowerment Advocacy and Mentorship (SFTEAM). She is also an active committee member of the CSAT LGBT work group, the CSAT National Latino Coalition, the UCSF Chancellor’s Advisory committee on LGBT issues, TransPRIDE, and the CDC work group on Transgender Health. She received the UCSF/CAPS International Women’s Day Award in 2000 and the UCSF Chancellor’s Award for LGBT Leadership in 2001.

Ms. Keatley lives with her nine year old boxer, Twiggers, in Oakland. They both enjoy hiking in the Oakland Hills, camping and fun times at home.