Jessica Rabbit Toirac Matos, a Cuban trans woman, publicly denounced an act of transphobia on social media last Sunday, committed by the Provincial Directorate of Culture in the province of Guantánamo.
Through her personal Instagram account, Toirac expressed her outrage and demanded respect and recognition of her rights as a trans woman, stating: "They are transphobic for not allowing trans women, dancers who have been evaluated in shows, to perform on a float."
This Cuban woman apologized to her followers on social media, who were looking forward to seeing her dance on a float during the Guantanamo carnival, but her participation has been blocked by the provincial cultural authorities.
Toirac expressed his frustration with great indignation regarding the non-fulfillment of the Family Code, approved on July 22, 2022, which recognizes the rights of people in the LGBTIQ+ community: "I don't know where the Family Code is, I don't know where CENESEX is, or the support for transgender women."
Additionally, she reported that transphobia in Guantánamo extends beyond the cultural sector: "The province of Guantánamo is transphobic," she warned, emphasizing the seriousness of the situation.
This person, a victim of discrimination by the Cuban regime, recounted that before the parade began, the carnival organizers informed her that "only natural women would dance on the floats," as she stated to CubaNet.
"When I went to participate in the dance, they told me no, that I couldn't do it because I am a trans woman. It seems that the cultural department issued an order stating that trans women cannot dance on the floats. I was the only one wanting to dance, but one of the organizers came up to me and bluntly said, 'You are trans; you can't dance,'" she stated to the mentioned news outlet.
The platform Alas Tensas, which addresses issues related to women and gender problems, shared the complaint, considering that Toirac's post highlighted the discontent of this transgender woman with Cuban public inclusion policies, particularly in the province of Guantánamo.
Although the Cuban regime proclaims policies of inclusion, the reality outside of the legal framework falls far short of reflecting those principles.
In 2023, school authorities prohibited a young Cuban student from the “José Marcelino Maceo Grajales” Pedagogical School in Guantánamo from wearing pants, in another act of transphobia.
Marions Vargas, nearly 17 years old, is a transgender boy who advocates for his right to wear the clothing of his identified gender. However, the school administration prohibited him from doing so, stating that "having been born with female genitalia confines him to the skirt as the only possible option," according to a report by CubaNet.
Recently, the former Minister of Culture and current president of Casa de las Américas, Abel Prieto Jiménez, sparked controversy following a tweet that was homophobic and transphobic.
Despite having deleted the post from his account on social media platform X, Prieto did not realize that his words were unwelcome by activists and individuals within the LGBTIQ+ community, who took screenshots and shared them on other social networks.
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