Daughter: Ra?l Castro Supports Gays in the Military

Raúl Castro, who is leading Cuba during his brother Fidel's lengthy illness, supports gays serving openly in the military, says his daughter, Mariela Castro Espín, director of the island's National Center for Sex Education, CENESEX.

Castro Espín was asked about "gays in the military" in a Nov. 4 interview with the Buenos Aires daily newspaper Clarín.

"I always say where there's humanity there's diversity, and in the military world there are gays also, but, of course, they are careful because it's a milieu that doesn't accept them," Castro Espín said. "It is still considered that the conditions to make changes do not exist."

"Well, my dad, the minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, says to me: 'Look, I think that to the extent the population changes, the army will change, because the population is in the army also. Go on working, raising awareness, doing things, changing Cuban society, and you'll change everything else, including our institutions.'"

Castro Espín said she has taken a direct interest in gay issues since 2004.

"A group of more than 40 cross-dressers and transsexuals from Havana came to see me at CENESEX to let me know about the difficulties they were having with the police in the central La Rampa zone, where they were meeting and still meet," she said. "The police were arbitrarily arresting them and then letting them go without charges, just because people were complaining [about them]."

Three years from now, Cuba is set to begin offering sex-change surgery.

"There are 27 transsexuals waiting for the operation [and] the medical team is being trained," Castro Espín said. "As soon as it's ready … they will start to operate."

Castro Espín also told Clarín that 80 percent of people with HIV in Cuba are men, and 85 percent of those are men who have sex with men, "often in connection with prostitution."

She also mentioned that she wants to visit the U.S. "but they won't give us a visa."

"I was there once and I've been invited back twice since then, but they didn't give it to me," she said. "I asked for it and they didn't respond. … [But] when they want, professional Americans come [to Cuba] via a third country and we have excellent relations and excellent e-mail contact."