A year after a ban was lifted, Cuba plans to soon start performing sex-change operations, the president's daughter said Wednesday.
Mariela Castro, a sexologist and gay rights advocate, said she has identified 19 transsexuals ready to have the procedure. (Thirty transsexuals have solicited the operations.)
In comments to a health conference that were aired on state television, Castro did not say when the surgeries would begin.
The government headed by her father, President Raul Castro, would pick up the tab.
The first successful sex-change operation was performed on the island in 1988, but subsequent procedures were prohibited.
The Health Ministry authorized the operations last year, but none has been performed since.
Some Cubans protested the reversal of the ban, either because of general opposition to the procedure or for its high costs for a developing country with economic problems.
Mariela Castro, who runs Cuba's Center for Sex Education, said she supports the lifting of a ban on lesbians being artificially inseminated.
Photo: Adalbert Roque, source
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