The Associated Press
6:49 PM EDT, May 27, 2009
HAVANA - Cuba will reinstate sex-change operations previously banned on
the island, President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela said Wednesday.
The Health Ministry authorized the operations last year, but none has
been performed since. It was unclear when the surgeries would begin.
Mariela Castro, a sexologist and gay-rights advocate, announced the
return of sex-change procedures in comments aired on state television.
She runs the Center for Sex Education, which prepares transsexuals for
sex-change operations and has identified 19 transsexuals it deems ready
to undergo the procedure.
Castro also said she backs efforts to allow lesbians to be artificially
inseminated, a procedure currently barred.
The first successful sex-change operation was performed on the island in
1988, but subsequent procedures were prohibited, Mariela Castro told an
international congress on assisted reproduction meeting in Havana.
Some Cubans protested the decision last year to allow the operations,
either because of general opposition to the procedure or for its high
costs for a developing country with economic problems.
The government would bear the cost of the operations because Cuba has a
universal health care system.
Castro's daughter: Cuba to reinstate sex changes -- South Florida
Sun-Sentinel.com (28 May 2009)
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/ap-cuba-sex-change-052709,0,4141561.story
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