Sex Change Operations Free in Cuba

HAVANA, (AP) - After first approved last June, Doctors in Cuba are now conducting sex-change operations and offer them free for qualifying citizens. The move was the latest in a series of changes implemented by President Raul Castro since he succeeded his elder brother, Fidel, in February 2009.

Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela, heads Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, which strongly backed the new policy.

Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer signed a resolution approving sex-change surgery last June. And the procedure is now available to Cubans for free as part of their country’s health-care system.

The sex education center has said previously that 28 transsexual Cubans have asked to undergo the surgery and that Cuban doctors are trained with physicians from Belgium to prepare for the procedures.

A clinic for transsexual health has been created to perform the procedures, and just recently began operating.

Cuba carried out a successful sex-change operation in 1988, but future surgeries were canceled because it sparked a negative public outcry.

Since becoming Cuba’s first new president in 49 years, the younger Castro has done away with bans that kept most Cubans from owning cell phones in their own names and renting hotel rooms and cars. His government also has decentralized the floundering state agricultural sector, raised pensions for retirees and hiked salaries for some state employees, among other changes