Progress in Transgender Rights
Cuba’s government-run healthcare system also protects transgender individuals. In 2007, Cuba began conducting state-sponsored sex-change operations after lifting a long-standing ban on the practice.
Leading the charge is Mariela Castro, a sexologist and advocate for gay rights, who oversees the Center for Sex Education. This institution trains transgender individuals for sex-change procedures and officially recognizes those Cubans who seek such transformations. In 1979, Cuba recorded 122 individuals desiring sex-change procedures, with the first successful operation taking place nine years later; however, subsequent sex-change operations had been prohibited until the ban was lifted.
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