LavenderRed_Cubabook

Revolution takes work
Mariel Castro Espín and CENESEX don’t rest on these laurels. She emphasized the
need for legislation and other actions to block discrimination and raise popular consciousness.
A job is a right in Cuba. However, she said, “there may be transsexuals who have a job
and are not rejected, because the law protects them, even if they go cross-dressed. But the
administrators always find a way to get rid of them.”
Addressing a conflict between revolutionary security police and trans Cubans two
years earlier, Castro Espín was very clear. She stated that neighbors had complained
about street solicitation. But when the security police arrested transsexuals and transvestites,
based on an assumption that they were prostitutes, Castro Espín stressed that they
were acting on backward ideas and prejudice.
“The police take measures—that’s what they are there for,” she explained, “but they
interpret things with their own way of thinking. They have learned over their lifetimes
that transsexuals and homosexuals are intrinsically bad.” (Rodriquez)
“This attitude was not in keeping with the policy or the law, because these do not
penalize a person for cross-dressing.” (Arreola)
Castro Espín noted, “We have been given procedural guidelines so these people know
how to defend themselves in case of police transgression of the regulations. “ (Arreola)
She explained that CENESEX intervened and set up a channel of communication
with the revolutionary security forces and the Ministry of the Interior. Together they
ordered police not to hassle transgender and transsexual Cubans. They also agreed to
provide education to Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police, including a seminar on distinct
expressions of gender and sexuality. (Arreola)
Castro Espín noted that the transsexual and transgender Cubans who had been harassed
came right to CENESEX to lodge complaints and demand redress. “Of course,
they came to demand their rights, because I don’t know if you have noticed, we Cubans
have a strong sense of justice and fight when we have to,” she said. (González)
“They spoke of everything that bothered them. I asked if I could tape what they had
said to prepare a report. And that’s what I did; a short report so they could read it over
rapidly and then a longer one with many annexes.
“That is how a national strategy came about for attention to transsexuals with an integral
vision since 1979, which was created by my mother, Vilma Espín, president of
the Cuban Women’s Federation. What we did was to broaden this work, to enrich it.”
(Mariela Castro Espín’s father is acting Cuban President Raul Castro.)
“We are even carrying out a very important study on representations of transsexuality,”
she concluded, “to carry out educational campaigns to teach society to respect these
people and respect their rights.” (González)
Cuba’s CENESEX proposes ground-breaking transsexual rights 87