May 23, 2012
Mariela Castro Tops US Visit With Transgender Talk
Jason St. Amand READ TIME: 1 MIN.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro is in San Francisco to meet with gay rights activists and to chair a panel at a prestigious academic conference.
Mariela Castro is an outspoken gay rights advocate in Cuba, where she has pressed her father's government to legalize same-sex marriages and campaigned to have sex reassignment surgery covered under the national health plan.
Castro started her San Francisco visit Tuesday attending meetings on transgender health care at the University of California, San Francisco. She is scheduled to participate in an educational forum on the same topic at San Francisco General Hospital on Wednesday.
Later, the San Francisco LGBT Center is planning to host Castro for a discussion on Cuba's gay rights policies.
She also is chairing a panel on sexual politics Thursday at the annual meeting of the Latin American Studies Association.
