Cuba performing state-sponsored sex change surgery
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press Writer
HAVANA -- Cuba has begun performing state-sponsored sex-change
operations after the government lifted a longtime ban on the procedure
in 2007, President Raul Castro's daughter said Tuesday.
A sexologist and gay-rights advocate, Mariela Castro runs the Center for
Sex Education, which prepares transsexuals for sex-change operations and
identifies Cubans it deems ready for the procedure.
Speaking to reporters during the fifth Cuban Conference on Sexual
Education, Orientation and Therapy, Castro said surgeries began in 2008
but would not specify exactly how many have been performed or how much
they cost.
She said only that Cuban doctors working with Belgian counterparts have
gotten to "less than half" of the 30 islanders approved to undergo the
procedure.
Cuba identified 122 people who wanted to have sex changes in 1979 and
performed the first successful operation nine years later, but
subsequent sex-change procedures were prohibited, Castro added.
The operations are covered by Cuba's universal health care system, even
though some have protested the decision to allow them - either because
of general opposition to the procedure or due to its high costs for a
developing country with economic problems.
"We schedule a certain number per year based on economic circumstances,"
Castro said, adding that, because of budget constraints, sex changes are
not offered to foreigners who travel to Cuba for medical care.
Castro also said Tuesday that she plans to prepare a letter to the
leadership of Cuba's Communist Party urging authorities to draft a
measure directing that homosexuals not be barred from joining the party.
Such a decree would be similar to one approved in the 1990s expressly
allowing Cubans of all religious affiliations to join.
Gays are not technically banned from the Communist Party, but Castro
said such a measure would help better cement their role in politics.
Castro also said her center will continue to push the single-party
government to rewrite civil codes and recognize same-sex unions, though
not full gay marriage.
However, she said the group has stopped pushing for same-sex couples to
be allowed to adopt children, saying Cuba's legal code provides no means
for such a move.
Cuba performing state-sponsored sex change surgery - World AP -
MiamiHerald.com (19 January 2010)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/1434016.html
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