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Loading ...Cuba to resume transgender surgery
05.28.2009 11:00am EDT
(Havana) Cuba will reinstate sex-change operations previously banned on the island, President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela said Wednesday.
The Health Ministry authorized the operations last year, but none has been performed since. It was unclear when the surgeries would begin.Mariela Castro, a sexologist and gay-rights advocate, announced the return of sex-change procedures in comments aired on state television. She runs the Center for Sex Education, which prepares transsexuals for sex-change operations and has identified 19 transsexuals it deems ready to undergo the procedure.
Castro also said she backs efforts to allow lesbians to be artificially inseminated, a procedure currently barred.
The first successful sex-change operation was performed on the island in 1988, but subsequent procedures were prohibited, Mariela Castro told an international congress on assisted reproduction meeting in Havana.
Some Cubans protested the decision last year to allow the operations, either because of general opposition to the procedure or for its high costs for a developing country with economic problems.
The government would bear the cost of the operations because Cuba has a universal health care system.
Jax:
Canada still beats the pants off the US on LGB issues.
I’m not sure what the T status is there; I’ve heard conflicting reports of people having difficulty getting surgery through the health care system, though.
The US is somewhere in the middle on the queer quality-of-life scale. Cuba is lower-middle. The Arab World, Africa and some parts of Eastern Europe are the lower. Most of Western Europe, Canada and increasingly South America are upper.
Hello Kari!! I totally understand what you are saying and wow, thanks for all that info,,,i LOVE when I get to learn things I didn’t know before. I am a Canadian so try not to rest too lightly on my completely-equal status here in Canada until the rest of the world gets in line to bring total equality to all my foreign brothers and sisters in the LGBT world. I visit Cuba frequently. I have adopted a wonderful family in Holguin (where Christopher Columbus landed before he hit Florida in 1492) and they care not at all that I am a Lesbiana. There are several very vibrant gay bars locally as well and I have never had difficulty getting to them, being in them or coming out of one. The Cubans, oppressed as they are, rarely oppress another. At least from my experience which of course is personal first-hand. They are loving, capable, delicious and inclusive. Those in power perhaps not so much, but I haven’t had occasion to speak with them. SO I take your word as the gospel then. I plan to retire in Cuba with all its amazing culture, people and vibrant society. Part-time here in Canada during hurricane season and part-time (Winter) in Cuba. I absolutely can’t wait!!
PS… I LOVE the States,,I really do,,well, I guess I should say I love what I have seen. I have been to 37 States and probably know more American History than most Americans. I have graced Hermosa Beach in California and sat in a hot tub under the stars in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and marvelled at the mountains in Utah, a place that is breathtaking. I can’t wait for the day when you have the same rights I do. I wont stop emailing your government(s) until that day happens. Even though we are of two nationalities everyone WITH full rights cannot stop fighting for the rights of all.
Cheers!
jax
Jax: The US is still a much better place to be if you’re LGBT than Cuba is.
On the LGB side, homosexuality was de jure illegal in Cuba until 1979, but is still de facto illegal in some parts of the country even today. Though technically not a crime, “public decency” laws can and do lead to gay people being arrested for no reason at all. There are no discrimination protections. There are no hate crimes protections. There is no legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Gays cannot serve in the military either.
In the United States, homosexuality is completely legal throughout the country since 2003, and was legal in most of the country even before that. More than half of US states include sexual orientation as a category in their hate crimes laws and almost half protect gay people from discrimination in employment. Several states allow same-sex marriage and a quarter offer at least some form of legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Gays cannot serve in the military, though.
On the T side, sex-reassignment surgery was illegal in Cuba for thirty years. It is only now that it is being decriminalized and Cuba is joining most other parts of the world in that regard. The standards of what procedures will constitute a legal change of sex in Cuba (if such is even allowed) are unknown.
In the US, I’m not certain sex-reassignment surgery was ever illegal per se. The vast majority of states legally recognize post-op transsexuals as members of their target sex, and the procedures required for that recognition are fairly lenient. Surgery isn’t free in the US because the US does not have universal health care; it’s not a result of purposeful discrimination.
A fair look at the situation forces me to conclude that, either as LGB or T, I’d certainly prefer to live in the US than Cuba strictly in terms of how the law affects these two minority groups. Let’s not even get into the severe economic devastation and endemic poverty present in Cuba stemming from state ownership of capital and dire lack of human rights in general.
Ironic that a country like Cuba, socialistic society, supports the gay world,,,yet the United States, a “democratic” society oppresses it’s minorities.
This is why I LOVE CUBA!!
Now if we could only get a strong gay advocate somewhere high in our government. Note, I did say strong and advocate, not ‘mealy-mouthed possible supporter’ who won’t help change any laws that are detrimental to gays… e.g. if it looks like Obama and talks like Obama, and acts like Obama..it must be Obama.