![\"cuban](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/cuban-transgender-eaton-opti1.jpg\")
<\/a>Castro has considered going to Florida herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to get a pair of breasts. I am almost 30 years old and I would like a pair of breasts, but I haven\u2019t gotten them. In any country in the world, I would already have breasts and I would be working in a normal job.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn any other country in the world, if I wanted electrolysis to get rid of the hair on the face, my arms, my underarms, I would have done it. Because it can be done. But here in Cuba, you can\u2019t. That is very difficult for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says she\u2019s also tired of the homophobia she faces in traditionally macho Cuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople always make fun of you. They yell, they throw rocks, bottles, anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castro acknowledges that things have improved for transgender and gay people on the island. She credits Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and head of Cuba\u2019s National Center for Sex Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank God she\u2019s helped us so much and has pushed forward gays, transsexuals, lesbians,\u201d says Castro, who is not related to the president\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n
Each May, Mariela Castro organizes events to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia<\/a>. She has called for equal treatment of gay and transgender people in the workplace. She also supports same-sex marriage, which is not legal in Cuba.<\/p>\n But some rights activists say change isn\u2019t happening quickly enough. In early 2015, they filed a complaint with the sex education center, accusing police of arbitrarily arresting gays.<\/p>\n Then in December, activists launched a grassroots campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. They passed out flyers along the Malec\u00f3n and signed a letter asking Cuban lawmakers to take action.<\/p>\n Daniela Martinez, 25, of Havana, jokes that she will find herself \u201cone or two husbands\u201d if same-sex unions are made legal.<\/p>\n She says she began dressing as a woman seven years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cAt 18, I realized that I liked to dress as a woman. So I started to change the way I dress. Little by little, I faced society.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez agrees that discrimination against gay and transgender people has lessened over the years.<\/p>\n \u201cNow there isn\u2019t as much homophobia,\u201d she says. \u201cWe can walk freely\u2026without people attacking us. People are a little more open-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n She supports same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be good because it would be a step forward. We\u2019d be accepted, having the same rights as heterosexual people.\u201d<\/p>\n During the 1960s, gays in Cuba weren\u2019t allowed to attend college, join the military or become teachers. Some gays were sent to government work camps where they picked fruit and vegetables for up to 12 hours a day.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were moment of great injustice, great injustice! If someone is responsible, it\u2019s me,\u201d former President Fidel Castro said in a 2010 interview<\/a> with Mexico\u2019s La Jornada newspaper.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death, that we didn\u2019t pay it enough attention,\u201d said Castro, referring to how gays and lesbians were treated.<\/p>\n Even today, some gay and transgender people say life can be difficult in Cuba.<\/p>\n Castro says she endures bullying and “psychological violence” when going out in public.<\/p>\n “Why should I have to get on a bus in my country and be disrespected? I don’t bother anyone. I respect all people, their sexual preferences, their diversity, whatever, I respect them. Why do they have to get into it with me? It’s very, very painful. Very painful.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live in a country that has a lot of taboos\u2026a lot of beliefs in machismo. My grandmother grew up with that. My grandfather, too. My father, too. My mother was different. She always supported me.\u201d<\/p>\n But Castro says her mother was killed in a car accident at age 39. She hasn\u2019t seen her father in 16 years.<\/p>\n She says improved U.S.-Cuba relations has had little impact on her life. She still struggles to put food on the table.<\/p>\n \u201cI have many dreams, but it\u2019s difficult to imagine they will become reality because economically we live in a country that has been beaten down, you understand, by the U.S. regime and this one, and that makes it hard to dream.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes dreams are frustrated. Why? Because we have no chance. We have no chance of saying: \u2018I can be a store employee.\u2019 Because then comes the rejection, the transphobia, the homophobia, you understand? Because they think that we are not equal human beings. That we do not have an IQ. People think we are … that we are the bubonic plague.\u201d<\/p>\n Naomi, 28, who is also transgender, says she realized when she was a small child that she was different.<\/p>\n “Since I was very young, I felt like a female, a woman. I carry it inside me. I always felt like a complete woman.”<\/p>\n She says she started dressing as a girl when she was 16.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I\u2019ve had some bad experiences because I live in a country where there\u2019s a lot of homophobia and transphobia,\u201d she says. \u201cSo for me it was a shock because I had to face society to be able to be like I had always wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cSociety has to accept me because I am like this and I will be like this until I die.\u201d<\/p>\n She says her father does not accept her.<\/p>\n \u201cHe disinherited me because he doesn\u2019t want a homosexual son,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was difficult for me to accept that because as the daughter that I am, I love him. I adore him.\u201d<\/p>\n But once he disinherited her, she says she \u201calso closed her heart\u201d and has tried to forget about him.<\/p>\n \u201cWith much pain, I tried to get him out of my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n She says her mother died of cancer four years ago. Survivors include her brother, 22, and sister, 20.<\/p>\n \u201cThey adore me! I am a second mother for them because my mother died and I was left to raise them since they were teen-agers.\u201d<\/p>\n She hopes to eventually have sex-reassignment surgery and adopt two children.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel totally like a woman. I plan to get married, have a family and be happy. That\u2019s my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n She says some Cubans see transgender people as \u201cdisgusting,\u201d but says she didn\u2019t choose her sexual orientation. She says she\u2019s transgender \u201cbecause we feel it in our heart.\u201d<\/p>\n Even so, she says some Cubans harass cross-dressers when they go out at night.<\/p>\n “The streets are dangerous because you have to face society, people. There are people who don’t accept you, who see you in the street dressed as a woman and they assault you. They throw rocks at you.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, that has happened to me on occasion and I, because I have very high self-esteem, what I do is to keep walking because if I, if I go to the police, it\u2019s possible they\u2019ll throw the blame on me because here there are big problems with the police and us.\u201d<\/p>\n In April, Cuban authorities arrested two people in connection with the stoning death of Diosvany Mu\u00f1oz Robaina, 41, in the western city of Pinar del Rio. Some activists described the killing as a hate crime. Diario de Cuba, a news website, later reported that the authorities jailed two gay men in connection with the crime.<\/p>\n The people who hang out at 23rd and Infanta say all they want is a little respect.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dream is that society accepts me just as it accepts you,\u201d Daniela Martinez said.<\/p>\nDaniela<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Naomi<\/h2>\n
<\/a>