AP
Last Updated: 12:55 PM, January 20, 2010
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 yesterday.
A sexologist and gay- rights advocate, Mariela Castro runs the Center
for Sex Education, which prepares transsex uals for sex- change opera
tions and iden tifies Cubans it deems ready for the proce dure.
Speaking to reporters dur ing the fifth Cuban Confer ence on Sexual Ed
ucation, 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 Bel gian counterparts have
got ten to "less than half" of the 30 islanders approved to un dergo 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,
although some have protested the decision to allow them due to its high
costs.
Cuba performing sex-change operations - NYPOST.com (20 January 2010)
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/havana_sex_change_of_heart_ZTyr1HjSfjqMvdIJOGG7sN
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