While the U.S. Congress continues to be mired in a swamp of partisan bickering over health care reform, and the American Psychiatric Association refuses to remove “Gender Identity Disorder” from its Diagnostic and Statiscal Manual (watch the Friday, March 12 issue of Dallas Voice for Renee Baker’s story on that topic), Cuba’s communist government has begun paying for sex change operations for some of its transgender citizens.
The program began in 1988 but was suspended for two decades amid complaints that the government had better things to spend its money on, according to this Associated Press story. But the program has started back up now under Mariela Castro, President Raul Castro’s daughter and the woman known as the country’s biggest LGBT rights activist.
Eight trans people were involved in the initial program, and now that it has restarted, 22 more trans people are waiting to get the surgery.
Read the whole story here.
2 Comments
I think Reinaldo Arenas is turning in his grave. I suggest you read Before Night Falls if you would like to discover how “open minded” the Communist governmet in Cuba is about homosexuals.
This is positive news for the human rights in Cuba. I think Reinaldo Arena would be very happy to see Cuba becoming a more open society for homosexuals.