The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Cuba has won advances on issues like the change of name of pre-operative transgender persons, while they continue to fight for the right to same-sex civil unions.<\/i><\/p>\n
For the first time since 1997, a transsexual woman who had not undergone sex-change surgery was issued a photo ID card this year reflecting her chosen name and gender identity, Manuel V\u00e1zquez, a lawyer with the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), a government-funded body, told IPS.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue supporting efforts to attain name changes in other cases, and we hope it will become the norm,\u201d said V\u00e1zquez, who is head of the legal services unit in CENESEX<\/a>, which reports that the family and the workplace are the spheres where the rights of LGBT persons are violated the most.<\/p>\n Up to now, the photo on the national ID card of trans women and men has had to reflect their biological sex.<\/p>\n In 1997, CENESEX managed to reach agreements with the ministries of the interior and justice to change the names and photos on the ID cards of 13 transgender people who had not undergone sex-reassignment surgery, although other civil registry documents, such as their birth certificates, were not modified. But that had not happened again until now.<\/p>\n Transgender people who have undergone sex-change surgery, which is provided free of charge in Cuba<\/a> since 2008, are allowed to modify their ID cards. In Cuba, 19 people \u2013 two of them female-to-male transgender persons \u2013 have had sex-reassignment surgery so far, according to CENESEX.<\/p>\n \u201cNow a trans person who has not had surgery is free to seek and win a name change, thanks to this precedent,\u201d V\u00e1zquez said.<\/p>\n Speaking to IPS during the month-long events surrounding the International Day Against Homophobia, celebrated May 17, Adela Hern\u00e1ndez, the only transgender member of a municipal assembly in Cuba, said she had started the process of applying for a name change on her ID card.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez, a nurse and now a municipal assembly member in the city of Caibari\u00e9n in the central province of Villa Clara, had to register as a candidate in the October-November 2012 municipal elections under the name Jos\u00e9 Agust\u00edn Hern\u00e1ndez and with a photo that looks very different from the woman who won a majority of votes in her district.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez is one of the special guests on this year\u2019s agenda of educational, cultural and \u2013 for the first time \u2013 sports activities organised by CENESEX, which has led a month of anti-homophobia events every year since 2008.<\/p>\n On this occasion, the central activities took place May 14-17 in the city of Ciego de \u00c1vila, 434 km east of Havana, ending with a festive march down the central avenue Libertad, with the demonstrators waving rainbow and Cuban flags and dancing in a conga line.<\/p>\n Mariela *, a 36-year-old mother, came to watch the conga line with her nine-year-old baby. \u201cI haven\u2019t taken part (in the activities), but I\u2019m not against it,\u201d she told IPS. \u201cThese events help families learn about sexual diversity and to respect it more, and help children and young people grow up better.\u201d<\/p>\n But other people are still opposed to the campaign<\/a> for respect for free sexual orientation and gender identity, which CENESEX carries out all year long, culminating in the May schedule of events<\/a>, dedicated this year to families.<\/p>\n CENESEX director Mariela Castro said \u201cthe hardest thing is to change people\u2019s mentalities,\u201d in a country that is still heavily machista and homophobic. In fact, until the 1990s, \u201costentatious public displays of homosexuality\u201d were illegal.<\/p>\n