Mariela Castro
Mariela Castro | |
|---|---|
 Mariela Castro addressing the Latin America plenary of the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights in Montreal. | |
| Director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 27 July 1962 Havana, Cuba |
| Spouse(s) | Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann Paolo Titolo |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent(s) | Raúl Castro Vilma Espín |
Mariela Castro Espín (born 27 July 1962) is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana and an activist for LGBT rights in Cuba. She is the daughter of Communist Party First Secretary Raúl Castro and feminist and revolutionary Vilma Espín, and the niece of former First Secretary Fidel Castro.
Early life
Mariela Castro is the daughter of Communist Party First Secretary Raúl Castro and feminist and revolutionary Vilma Espín, and the niece of former First Secretary Fidel Castro. She has a brother, Alejandro Castro Espín.[citation needed]
Career
Her group campaigns for effective AIDS prevention as well as recognition and acceptance of LGBT human rights. In 2005, she proposed a project to allow transgender people to receive sex reassignment surgery and change their legal gender. The measure became law in June 2008 which allows sex change surgery for Cubans without charge.[1]
Mariela Castro is president of the Cuban Multidisciplinary Centre for the Study of Sexuality, president of the National Commission for Treatment of Disturbances of Gender Identity, member of the Direct Action Group for Preventing, Confronting, and Combatting AIDS, and an executive member of the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS). She is also the director of the journal Sexología y Sociedad, a magazine of Sexology edited by her own National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX).
Castro has published 13 scholarly articles and nine books.[2]
Castro is a sitting member of the National Assembly of People's Power.[3] When the assembly voted in 2014 to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, Castro opposed the legislation because it did not also include protection on the basis of gender identity,[3] and became possibly the first legislator in the body's history ever to vote against a piece of legislation.[3]
Personal life
Castro is married to Italian Paolo Titolo, General Manager of Amorim Negócios Internacionais, S.A. in Cuba, and has one child with him, and two daughters from her previous marriage with the Chilean former FPMR member Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann.[4][5]
See also
References
- ^ BBC NEWS | Americas | Cuba to provide free sex-change
- ^ Official programme of the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights
- ^ a b c "Raúl Castro's daughter first lawmaker to vote 'no' in Cuban parliament". The Guardian, 19 August 2014.
- ^ Paolo Titolo on LinkedIn
- ^ Castro's Family Miami Herald Oct 8 2000
External links
- Mariela Castro’s Hopes for Cuba By Dalia Acosta, Havana Times 24 June 2009
- Cuban Parliament considers legal recognition of the rights of transsexuals, La Jornada, 9 January 2006
- The Reyes Report: Free Sex Change Operations in Cuba 19 June 2008
- Cuban soap's gay story starts dialogue, Chicago Sun-Times, 18 June 2006[dead link]
- Interview with Mariela Castro from MEDICC Review 2006
- Interview with Mariela Castro from MEDICC Review, April 2012, Vol 14, No 2
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
- 1962 births
- Living people
- People from Havana
- Cuban people of Canarian descent
- Cuban people of French descent
- Cuban people of Galician descent
- Cuban atheists
- LGBT rights activists from Cuba
- Fidel Castro family
- Civil rights activists
- HIV/AIDS activists
- Cuban women in politics
- Sexologists
- Children of national leaders
- Members of the National Assembly of People's Power
- 21st-century women politicians