Related videos:
Juani Santos, recognized as the first transgender man in Cuba to undergo gender reassignment surgery funded by the regime, has passed away.
The news was announced by Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, vice president of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC), in an emotional message on his Facebook account.
"Juani has passed away, the first transgender man in Cuba who, as an older adult, had the courage and the fulfillment to undergo gender reassignment surgery in our country," wrote Rodríguez Cruz, the regime's spokesperson in the weekly Trabajadores and an activist for the LGBTI community.
Born on September 20, 1949 in the province of Matanzas, Juani Santos identified as male from the age of five.
Around the age of 20 —around 1969— he formally requested assistance from the Cuban government to begin his transition, and was diagnosed as a male transsexual in 1972, making him one of the first documented cases on the island.
After approximately 40 years of waiting, he was able to undergo surgery in 2010, at the age of 61, under the framework of Resolution 126 from the Ministry of Public Health, which was approved in June 2008 and authorized free genital reassignment surgeries.
At that moment, the Cuban government financed a sex reassignment surgery for the first time, a historic milestone that turned Juani into a symbol of perseverance in the face of a system that took decades to respond.
Alongside another trans man who did not make his story public, Juani was involved in the first two male genital reassignment surgeries performed in Cuba.
Rodríguez Cruz recalled an intimate moment during one of the Cuban Days Against Homophobia and Transphobia — the first held after Juani's surgery — when both coincided in a restroom during the so-called Diversity Party.
"For Juani, that achievement of being able to urinate standing up, a fundamental desire for someone who has always been a man but could not do so before, encapsulated in a simple biological act his lifelong struggle," wrote the journalist.
Juani worked for 48 years in a factory in Matanzas and in 2018, at the age of 68, became the first trans man in Cuba to openly discuss his experience with the media, granting interviews to publications such as Vance magazine.
His story was particularly significant because it involved a trans man, a category that has historically been much less visible than trans women in Cuba: in 2018, while there were 4,447 registered trans women with 37 surgeries performed, only about twenty trans men were counted across the entire country.
"I didn't ask to be born this way; nature or God made me this way. Why do they have to reject me if I don't harm anyone?" Juani stated in an interview recorded in 2018.
Rodríguez Cruz concluded his tribute with words that encapsulate the legacy left by this man from Matanzas: "Hardworking, humble, wise, it is an honor for that man from Matanzas who taught us so much about strength and kindness."
Filed under: