cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5682496
The island nation of Cuba will now allow transgender people to change the gender markers on their government-issued identity cards without having to undergo “bottom surgery,” a legal change long sought by the country’s trans and nonbinary communities.
On July 18, the country’s National Assembly of People’s Power (NAPP) approved a law allowing people to change their gender markers without first requiring a court-approved document proving that applicants had undergone genital affirming surgeries.
This new law is one of several recently approved by the NAPP to update the technology and policies of the nation’s record-keeping system. Cuba’s new Civil Registry code will now recognize unmarried couples’ emotional unions or cohabitation agreements, providing some legal recognition of various domestic partnerships.
deleted by creator
This has been the case in many localities for some time, all it required was a doctor slip and there are plenty of docs willing to give it. Glad to see this unnecessary law erased though.
it’s sad that it required fidel castro to step back to allow lgbt rights to take place in cuba and decades behind the rest of americas; but atleast it’s better late than never.
Fidel never inhibited LGBT rights, and most of the framework for making Cuba the most LGBT and trans-friendly nation was laid while he was still alive. He was openly very pro LGBT.
The controversy about this comes from the UMAP camps, which he explicitly stated was an incorrect policy, and a “great injustice” in his autobiography:
Fidel Castro visited one of the UMAP camps incognito to experience the treatment for himself. He was followed by 100 boys from the Young Communist League whose identity was also kept secret. In 1968, shortly after these visits, the camps closed.[8] Castro said, “They weren’t units of internment or punishment… However, after a visit I discovered the distortion in some places, of the original idea, because you can’t deny that there were prejudices against homosexuals. I personally started a review of this matter. Those units only lasted three years.”[19]
In his autobiography My Life, Fidel Castro criticized the machismo culture of Cuba and urged for the acceptance of homosexuality. He made several speeches to the public regarding discrimination against homosexuals.
In a 2010 interview with Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Castro called the persecution of homosexuals while he was in power “a great injustice, great injustice!” Taking responsibility for the persecution, he said, “If anyone is responsible, it’s me… We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death. In those moments, I was not able to deal with that matter [of homosexuals]. I found myself immersed, principally, in the Crisis of October, in the war, in policy questions.” Castro personally said that the negative treatment of gays in Cuba arose out of the country’s pre-revolutionary attitudes toward homosexuality.[34]
There’s a lot of info on this on communist LGBT groups in Cuba, everyone loves Fidel for coming around creating the modern CENESEX org.
i don’t mean to imply that he inhibited lgbt rights; i mean to say that lgbt rights didn’t take meaningful positive steps forward in cuba until mariela & raul took over for him.
latin america has plenty of examples of leaders giving tepid support for lgbt rights and i know from my personal experience that’s its meaningless like clinton’s support despite signing don’t-ask-don’t-tell & defense-of-marriage act along w obama’s support for the latter in his first term.
Fidel willingly acknowledged he caused the community pain and was ashamed of himself for it, resigned shortly after a speech on the matter and stacked the cabinet for communist LGBT advocates. He also helped create CENESEX which is leading the charge to make Cuba by far the most LGBT accepting country legislatively. He was a flawed man, but he was a good and honorable man for recognizing his flaws and correcting them.
Cuba also had the first transgender surgery in LATAM and it was fully state funded. All HRT and trans surgeries in Cuba are free.
yeah, better late than never, as i said.
especially so as everyone else starts to regress.