GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

MSNBC: Cuba's free sex changes mark break from past
The operations have begun anew under President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, Cuba’s top gay-rights activist, and 22 more transsexuals are waiting to have it performed.

Mariela Castro has seen to it that the state formally recognizes transsexuals. A state-trained kindergarten teacher with a degree in sexuality, she runs the National Sexual Education Center. It spent years lobbying communist officials, who finally agreed to lift bans on sex changes in 2008 — though the resolution was never made public to avoid unwanted attention.

The right is already labeling it yet another horror of the Communist dictatorship.

Like universal health care, the banning of religion from public speeches by authorities, 100% literacy policies, sliding-scale college education and those terrible government programs aimed at feeding orphans.

The most important issue is not whether genital reconstruction surgery in Cuba is free (as in free beer), but rather whether it is free (as in free speech). The newspaper articles conveniently ignore that issue.

http://ipsnoticias.net/nota.asp?idnews=94446

Castro, directora del gubernamental Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (Cenesex), dijo que, desde su creación como grupo en 1979, la actual Comisión Nacional de Atención a Transexuales ha recibido 122 solicitudes y, tras estudios multidisciplinarios, se han identificado 30 transexuales, de los cuales 26 solicitaron la operación.

[Mariela] Castro, director of the government-run National Education Centre (Cenesex), said that, since its creation as a group in 1979, the actual National Committee of Transsexual Care has received 122 applications and, after multidisciplinary studies, 30 transsexuals have been identified, of which 26 requested surgery.

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In short, even if officially they don't follow the DSM and the Benjamin paradigm, they still have a dense bureaucracy that is there mostly to deny, in order to spend less.

I wonder what or how they classified the other 92 that were identified as not transsexuals. It would be interesting to know more about their estudios multidisciplinarios.

"Estudios multidisciplinarios" my behind.

I bet you get surgery or not based on how good is your allegiance to the Party, and how many good friends you or your family has in good positions.

Sociolism. The political system where everything is obtained through the right socio (= friend, lover, relative in position of power).

I wonder what the surgery results are? Never had heard of any GRS surgeons in Cuba.

''The fail of ''liberal'' democracies to promote the social justice makes the revolution the ultimate answer for our prolems''. Sometimes that is very true.

You appear to be in Oregon.
US citizens are not allowed to have (non-emergency) medical treatment in Cuba.

Canadians wanting surgery in Cuba must book through
http://www.hsi-ssi.com/
To the best of my knowledge no Canadian has gone to Cuba for GRS even though "all types of cosmetic surgery" are available.

Generally speaking, Cubans medicine is excellent, from a purely technical perspective that is.

I am already post-op. Plus, I have no desire to go to Cuba.

With revolutions you have to be lucky.

It's always about just changing who's on top, and most of those who were at the bottom remain right there after.

Unless they die during, that is.

Yes, I understand.

You were asking about results and commenting that we have not heard of the surgeons.

The answer was that as far as I know, no-one in North America has been, and that (in effect) only Canadians will be allowed to go until the US policy towards Cuba changes.
Which it might after some Canadians have paved the way for the American girls.

You know it's really funny and hypocritical that the US refuses to diplomticlly recognize Cuba by demanding democratic reforms first, yet we trade freely with who we used to call "Red China."

Oh yeah, money talks....

I could never understand why the USA, didn't work with Castro when he took power.

well i don't need surgery or anything medical - but after reading up it looks like a nice place. esp if i defect and play a bit of a LGBT rights poster girl with a provable lack of medical finance motivation....something to think about.

downside - would have to make an effort to learn spanish

Yes, indeed.

Does anyone have a recommendation for free or cheap online Spanish lessons? Not so much for rank beginners but for those whose high school Spanish has many years of rust and disuse on it?

Oh, and if you want to learn a bit more about Cuba, I suggest reading Leslie Feinberg.

You could enjoy the resorts and the beaches just speaking English. For a tourist, the only language that matters is "green."

But if you want to honestly be part of the culture, yes, you need Spanish (just like you need English here). Fortunately, Romance languages are easy to learn for someone who already speaks some other Euro-Indoeuropean language, plus much of the vocabulary is similar.

ELE Madrid offers some classes online, free of charge, if you give them your email. I have no idea if they are good or bad, but I use their most excellent verb conjugator: you give it a verb in Spanish in the infinitive, and it gives you a very accurate conjugation for the indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative.

http://www.elemadrid.com/spanish_verbs.htm

A good tool, that can be used even by native speakers with a good command of the language. And faster than looking it up in the Bescherelle.

Hmm, I note elemadrid offers (paid) residential courses in Spanish, given in Spain. Possibly the email courses are slow enough to generate paid business. Still, at free the price is right, one mustn't complain too much.

Attractive though Spain may be for a native of the New World I believe I would be more interested in courses in Spanish given in Cuba. I wonder if that exists?

The all-inclusive, all-exclusive beach resort would not be my cup of tea, or mojito for that matter!

in truth, i bet gf would veto the plan. but spanish is one of the languages i'd like to learn someday.

And what from Leslie Feinberg would be relevant? as long as it's not 'but they have no freedom' criticism i am interested.

thanks a lot Holly. and yesss. just about what i thought already, on my own. and lf is someone i actually sense to be trustworthy.

I'd say there's less variation in Castilian Spanish than there is in Standard English.

The gap between Cuban Spanish, Argentinian Spanish and Madrid Spanish is smaller than that between West Australian English, Liverpool (Scouser) English, and Californian English.

There are plenty of regionalisms, though: a guagua (wawa) in Chile is a baby or small toddler, while in Cuba is a bus. The camión in Mexico is a bus, but in South America is a truck. And while a chavo is a young boy in Mexico, in Argentina the same is a pibe.

A parranda (party) in Panama becomes a juerga in Perú, and something in Venezuela is chévere (cool) when in Mexico is rebueno, and in Perú is bacán. A pendejo in Mexico is a stupid sod, while in Perú it's someone sneaky enough to sell you the Golden Gate.

A capullo (gay guy) in Spain is a maricón in South America, which is a joto in Mexico. And in Cuba if you get cabreada (angry) you could become what in Argentina is called an atorrante (annoying classless person). And so on.

But that's not any different to English. When you cross North America, you find your lingo learned on the East Coast doesn't work as well on the West Coast. Or when you move from Texas to the Northeast. And then on to Canada. So be careful when you use non-standard words.

Feinberg's landmark work is of course "Stone butch blues" which is written as a novel but is darned close to being an autobiography ending in middle age. It spells out (especially for FTMs but also for everyone) the danger of getting "stuck" between the sexes in a no man's land.

Compelling reading for anyone.

Feinberg (who wants neither his, her or its) writes about Cuba mostly as a compendium of snippets and historical references by the million.

The simple fact is that we know our government lies to us continuously about Cuba, but other that doesn't help get any closer to the reality.
One thing is for sure, straight cis-sexual Mariel Castro-Espin, daughter of Raul is a sexologist who has brought enormous progess to LGBT in Cuba in the last decade.
My own father was in Cuba in 1940, he saw it was just about the most prostitution-ridden, decadent place in the world. He described little boys openly touting their pre-teen sisters for sex. And so on.

Given Cuba was literally in a struggle for survival in its early decades, becoming self-sufficient with an initially mostly illiterate population it is hardly remarkable that it took them quite a long time to get on top of the machismo that was so very much a part of Latin culture. It just was not a priority.

They had bigger fish, like going from the country with fewest number of doctors per capita in Latin America in 1960 to most by 1975.

Idealism also played a part.

Some of the better educated people from other countries in Latin America moved to Cuba to help with the revolution, since it seemed they could do nothing in their own countries.

Some of them were doctors, who could teach medicine. And some were medical students, ready to be part of the first promotions on the island.

Without going further, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was a medical doctor from Argentina, specialized (in allergies) in Mexico. He had been a lecturer, as well.

His story of leaving his own country behind to go teach and help in Cuba is not atypical.

I have been using livemocha.com to learn Spanish for a few days. I did some Spanish in school, gosh, "many" years ago, so my starting level was very uncertain (not to mention ragged at the edges). Ser versus estar were old friends ;-)

livemocha seems to cater for an uncertain starting point well, you can start at beginner level and move very quickly if you have the least background. You are not held back by mindless drills.

Their self-help system works well (you submit writings and sound recordings and they are reviewed (graded) in exchange for you reviewing the work of others learning your native language).
Since English is a popular language to learn (for native Spanish speakers at least) you get more out than you put in as regards grading.

My only complaint is that the pricing is deceptive, however it is quite cheap so that doesn't matter too too much. Still, it is puzzling why they are not up-front about how much you get for free, and how much it costs. Being deceptive leaves a bad taste and creates distrust needlessly. You need not pay at all if you are willing to grade lots of other people's work and you are not especially in a hurry.

I suspect they change pricing daily, and I can understand why they want to experiment, but even if that is so they are still hiding the ball and that creates suspicion and distrust.