A transgender Pride flag flies over Mi Cayito, a beach east of Havana. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
Cuban lawmakers earlier this month approved an amendment to the country’s Civil Registry Law that will allow transgender people to legally change the gender marker on their ID documents without surgery.
Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, an activist and journalist who works with the National Center for Sexual Education that Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, directs, in a Facebook post noted the National Assembly on July 18 unanimously approved several amendments to the Civil Registry Law that contain “important guarantees and rights for trans and intersex people in Cuba, and in general for all of our LGBTI citizenry.”
“The new law establishes as rights and obligations under the civil registry the principle of equality under the law without discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, among other grounds, established in the 2019 constitution,” wrote Rodríguez.
The 2019 constitution that Cubans overwhelmingly approved in a referendum did not include marriage rights for same-sex couples. Cubans in a 2022 referendum endorsed a new family code that paved the way for marriage equality on the Communist island.
Rodríguez notes the revised Civil Registry Law, among other things, opens the doors for the legal recognition of parents who are the same sex and trans and intersex children.
“Cuba advances towards equality,” said the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC) in response to the vote.
Argentina, Uruguay, Germany, and Malta are among the countries that allow trans people to legally change their name and gender without surgery.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgery since 2008, but activists who are critical of Mariela Castro and CENESEX have said access to these procedures is limited. Mariela Castro, who is also a member of the National Assembly, in 2013 voted against a measure to add sexual orientation to Cuba’s labor code because it did not include gender identity.
The Cuban constitution bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, among other factors. Authorities, however, routinely harass and detain activists who publicly criticize the government.
Authorities in 2021 arrested Brenda Díaz, a trans woman with HIV who participated in an anti-government protest in Artemisa Province.
A Havana court sentenced her to 14 years in prison. Independent journalists reported authorities “forced” Díaz to serve her sentence in a men’s prison. Authorities in January released her after the Vatican helped broker a deal in which then-President Joe Biden agreed to delist Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. (The Trump-Vance administration restored the designation shortly after it took office.)
The Cuban government in 2019 refused to allow this reporter to enter the country to cover International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia events. Authorities detained him at Havana’s José Martí International Airport for several hours before they allowed him to board a flight back to the U.S.
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