By Marc Lacey
Friday, June 8, 2007
HAVANA: Twenty or so transvestites sat in a circle discussing their
woes: harassment, boyfriend troubles, the challenge of removing hair
from their legs. Empathizing with them was Mariela Castro Espín, Cuba's
premier sexologist.
"I know, I know," she said, putting her hand on one of her own legs to
show she could relate.
Then the conversation took an interesting turn. The transvestites, who
are receiving training as AIDS counselors at the National Center for
Sexual Education, which Castro directs, brought up sexual liaisons some
of them had had with soldiers. Maybe counseling in the barracks was
needed, they said.
Castro smiled and raised her eyebrows but did not dismiss the suggestion
out of hand. Homosexuality is illegal in Cuba's military. In fact, some
Cubans have avoided military service altogether by claiming to be gay.
Making the proposal even more sensitive, everyone in the circle
understood, is the fact that Castro, 44, is the daughter of Raúl Castro
- the commander of Cuba's armed forces and, with the recent health
problems of his brother, Fidel Castro, the temporary leader of the
government.
Despite her pedigree in Cuba's most famous family, no one seems to hold
his or her tongue around Castro. While her father is known for his
serious, strait-laced bearing, Castro has a more down-to-earth air. A
mother of three who is married to an Italian photographer, she speaks of
topics that might make others here blush.
"Sexuality does not just have a reproductive function," she declared in
an interview on the front porch of a Havana mansion, where the center is
located, noting that sex is also about love and pleasure and discovery
and experiment. "Human beings are much more diverse than we think."
Cuba, like many islands around the Caribbean, is a sexually liberal
place where relationships out of wedlock are commonplace and taboos seem
to be few, but only within heterosexual relationships. Homosexuality,
transvestitism and transsexuality are another matter.
Historically, gays in Cuba have experienced the wrath of the government,
with many sent off to labor camps. The climate has greatly improved in
recent years, most seem to agree. Still, transvestites continue to
complain of police harassment, and those with AIDS remain stigmatized,
making prevention programs a challenge.
"I suggest you take a stroll on La Rampa to see how freely people
express their sexual orientation," Castro said, mentioning a popular
gathering spot for gays in Havana. "This doesn't mean we don't have to
work in the political arena and in the education of all of society."
Castro said she felt no pressure to enter the family business of island
politics. She studied psychology in college, she said, and is now on the
forefront of Cuba's effort to make sex, in all its variety, as natural a
discussion topic as it is a physical act.
Castro, who is writing her doctoral dissertation on transvestitism, is
also pushing for an overhaul of Cuban laws so that, among other things,
the government health care system covers surgery for transsexuals and
that new official identification documents are issued after the operation.
Already, a government panel reviews individual cases of those wishing to
change their sex and refers some transsexuals to therapy and hormone
treatment. Currently, 26 transsexuals have been approved for treatment
by the committee and another 50 cases are under review, Castro said.
She recalled her discomfort several years ago when some transvestites
first approached her as a counselor at the center to raise their
difficulties with the authorities. "At the beginning, I didn't
understand them," she said.
But the more she listened, the more she began to believe that Cuba's
Communist state, in which she is a committed believer, ought to embrace
transvestites as comrades along with everyone else.
No sex-related topic is off limits in the center's publication, Sexology
and Society, which features artwork and poetry with sexual themes and
academic articles dealing with everything from gay-bashing to domestic
violence to hormone therapy for transsexuals.
Her magazine publishes research from scientists around the world, no
matter whether the countries they are from have good relations with
Cuba. That means U.S. sex research sometimes finds its way onto the
pages of Sexology and Society.
Castro, who has two sisters and a brother, insists that her family name
"doesn't help me at all." To the contrary, she said, when she has
attempted to work with the Cuban military, commanders were so concerned
about nepotism that they were uncooperative.
But Castro acknowledges that she has access to the very top of Cuba's
bureaucracy, which certainly does not hurt in pushing her agenda.
She said she puts a copy of her center's magazine on her father's
bedside table and briefs him on her work whenever she can. "He has told
me he supports me, that he supports the personal rights of homosexuals,"
she said of her father, who is 75 and spent his life as a military man.
"He always says go slowly, though, so you don't build walls."
Making the case to her uncle, Fidel, has been even more of a challenge.
He is known for firing back questions at those briefing him and
expecting knowledgeable answers. "I was terrified he would ask me
something I didn't know," she said.
Now that she has become an expert, she gives him informal briefings on
sex-related topics whenever she can. But getting an audience is not
easy, she said.
Castro views her work as continuing that of her mother, Vilma Espín, who
has been the head of the Cuban Women's Federation for nearly half a
century. The sexual education center, like nearly every other group in
Cuba, is part of the government bureaucracy. But Castro said she
participated in politics as an everyday citizen, not as the niece of El
Commandante, whom she recently described as being in "stupendous" condition.
Despite her government's restrictions on political speech, Castro is an
outspoken advocate for more open sexual discourse.
"If you suppress things, they will become hidden," she said. "It has
been proved in scientific research in Cuba and other countries that the
more education you give adolescents and adults, the more people are free
to make their own decisions."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/08/frontpage/profile.php
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