Fiorella Cava

{{Infobox person

| name = Fiorella Cava

| image = Fiorella Cava (cropped).png

| caption = Cava in 2012

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1960|05|31}}

| birth_place = Lima, Peru

| education =

| occupation = Musician and transgender rights activist

}}

Fiorella Vincenza Cava Goicochea{{Refn|Fiorella was known as Sergio Vinicio Cava Goicochea before changing her legal name following a ruling by the Lima Superior Court.{{Cite web |last=Muñoz |first=Reynaldo |date=2012-08-21 |title=Fallo judicial a favor de transexual marca hito en Perú |url=https://es-us.noticias.yahoo.com/fallo-judicial-favor-transexual-marca-hito-per%C3%BA-192601506.html |access-date=2025-04-01 |website=Yahoo News}}|group=note}} (born May 31, 1960) is a singer, musician and activist for transgender rights in Peru.

Personal life

Cava studied law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and communication sciences at the University of Lima. At the same time, she began a career as a musician, which led her to prepare a law thesis on intellectual rights in the recording industry. Later, at the age of 23, she obtained the position of manager at the Consortium of Music Publishers of Peru.{{Cite web |last=Soto Mendieta |first=Romina |date=2022-07-19 |title=Creó un hit inmortal de los 80s. Ahora, es una de las músicas trans más importantes de la región |url=https://www.infobae.com/lgbt/2022/07/19/fiorella/ |access-date=2022-08-12 |website=Infobae |language=es}}

Her musical career began with the band Hielo, with whom she recorded her first hit, El rock del vago, which was among the most listened to songs on Panamericana Radio in 1983. Three years later, in 1986, together with drummer Jesús Hurtado and bassist Alex Nathanson, she formed the band JAS.{{Cite web |title=JAS y la dama del rock |url=http://www.larepublica.com.pe:80/noticia_pasada_cs.jsp?pIdNoticia=29884&pId=13&pFechaInicio=2005-02-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050410083413/http://www.larepublica.com.pe:80/noticia_pasada_cs.jsp?pIdNoticia=29884&pId=13&pFechaInicio=2005-02-06 |archive-date=2005-04-10 |access-date=2023-06-17 |website=La República |language=es}} The following year, they released Mueres en tu ley, whose promotional single Ya no quiero más ska became the band's most recognized song. In 1992, they released their second album, "¿De qué te quejas?", which did not receive the same response as the first.

After the dissolution of JAS in 1995, Fiorella Cava stepped back from public life to begin her transition. After traveling through Argentina, Chile, and Spain, she decided to return to Lima to live openly with her new gender identity. In 2004, during her master's degree in History and Anthropology of Culture at the National University of San Marcos, she published Identidad, cultura y sociedad: un grito desde el silencio, one of the first academic texts on transgenderism in Peru. After a fourteen-year legal battle, the Superior Court of Lima ruled in 2012 in her favor, and she was able to legally change her name on her identity document.{{Cite web |date=2012-08-13 |title=Fiorella Cava habla de su orientación sexual |trans-title=Fiorella Cava talks about her sexual orientation |url=https://rpp.pe/lima/actualidad/fiorella-cava-habla-de-su-orientacion-sexual-noticia-511524 |access-date=2022-08-12 |website=RPP |language=es}}{{Cite web |title=Perú: el caso de Fiorella Cava pone en primer plano de la actualidad el derecho a la identidad de las personas transexuales |trans-title=Peru: Fiorella Cava's case brings transgender people's right to identity to the forefront |url=https://www.dosmanzanas.com/2012/08/peru-el-caso-de-fiorella-cava-pone-en-primer-plano-de-la-actualidad-el-derecho-a-la-identidad-de-las-personas-transexuales.html |access-date=2022-08-12 |language=es}} Her success was covered in Peruvian news, and she received media hostility, even being attacked by a group of far right in a park in Lima, a fact that she denounced. As a transgender rights activist, she founded the first transgender association in Peru, CISNE (Centro de Identidad y Sexualidad Nueva Existencia).{{Cite web |last=Huamán |first=Bethsabé |date=2012-12-08 |title=Se llama Fiorella - Instituto Runa |url=http://www.runa.org.pe/hot-news-1/sellamafiorella |access-date=2022-08-12 |website=www.runa.org.pe |language=es}}

She would eventually return to music as a soloist, releasing Rituales vacíos in 2009 with producer Dante Gonzáles. In 2020, JAS reformed with new members, with Cava doing vocals, and released the double CD Antología 1986 – 2019. Since 2021, she has led an experimental musical project called C.A.V.A.{{Cite web |date=2020-10-21 |title=Fiorella Cava: “El rock es cultura” |url=https://limaenescena.pe/fiorella-cava-el-rock-es-cultura/ |access-date=2022-08-12 |website=Lima en escena |language=es}}