Brasilia/Havana - Brazilian and Cuban authorities are to
provide free sex-change operations as part of their healthcare plans.
In Brazil, the Federal Medicine Council has approved sex-change
operations since the late 1990s, but the procedure could only be
conducted in the private healthcare system at a very high cost. The
government will now begin paying for the operations, local media
reported Friday, citing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and
Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao.
In communist Cuba, sex-change surgery was authorized for the first
time, and it will be offered free of charge, sources at the National
Centre for Sexual Education (Cenesex) told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
dpa Friday.
The Brazilian minister announced that country's move late Thursday
alongside Lula, as they opened the first National Conference of Gays,
Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals being held
through Sunday in Brasilia.
Gomes Temporao said the move is in accordance with the
government's homosexual rights policy.
'It is one more step towards the consolidation of that policy, in
which Brazil is a world leader,' he noted.
Lula said the state's refusal to pay for such operations would
amount to 'discrimination.'
'When you pay your taxes, nobody asks you which is your sexual
option. Why discriminate against you when you freely choose what to
do with your body?' Lula said.
Gomes Temporao said the surgery will initially be performed only
in state university hospitals in large urban areas.
The move in Cuba was announced by a source at Cenesex, which is
headed by Cuban President Raul Castro's daughter, sexologist Mariela
Castro. It was said to be part of the framework of a programme for
the 'integral' care of transsexuals.
The resolution by the Public Health Ministry is operational but
has yet to be formally made public. The document was signed earlier
this week by Public Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer, and
stipulates the 'creation of a specific health centre for transsexual
people,' the sources added.
Mariela Castro said recently that a 28-person waiting list for
sex-change operations has already been approved in Cuba. The only
instance of such surgery so far in Cuba was in 1988 and received so
much criticism that the programme was called off.
Cuban specialists are currently preparing alongside Belgian
colleagues, and it was not known when the surgery would start to be
performed on the communist island, Mariela Castro said as she
celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia last month.
SP4:Let me see if I understand...Jun 6th, 2008 - 23:23:24
...a nation with some of the worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere has the money and time to perform free sex change operations....
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