Two decades after the suspension of paid sex-change operations in Cuba forced many transsexual citizens to live in bodies they did not feel comfortable in, the operations have begun anew under President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela, Cuba’s top gay-rights activist, and the country’s universal health care system, reports The Associated Press.

With a history of being fiercely anti-gay – specifically during the ’60s, when homosexuals were fired from state jobs, and many fled into exile (transsexuals were considered the same as homosexuals) – Cuban society is slowly, but surely, joining the ranks of tolerance and acceptance. Fidel Castro said as much during a series of interviews between 2003-2005 with French journalist Ignacio Ramonet.

“I’d like to think that discrimination against homosexuals is a problem that is being overcome. Old prejudices and narrow-mindedness will increasingly be things of the past.”

Beginning in 2008, eight Cubans have undergone the surgery, with another 22 waiting to have it performed. However, Mariela Castro has said the government is moving cautiously, doing only a few per year. The program had been suspended sine 1988, because the Communist government thought the money could be spent in better ways.

“There has been a lot of resistance because homophobia remains strong in our culture,” she said at a recent conference on sexuality.

Mariela Castro has seen to it that the state formally recognizes transsexuals. A state-trained kindergarten teacher with a degree in sexuality, she runs the National Sexual Education Center. It spent years lobbying communist officials, who finally agreed to lift bans on sex changes in 2008 — though the resolution was never made public to avoid unwanted attention.

“These processes of negotiation are sometimes done very quietly,” Mariela Castro said, “so as not to stir up ghosts.”

She now says that financial concerns in the past were simply used to hide prejudices.

The entire article, centering on the transition of Yiliam Gonzalez, is a highly interesting read.