LGBT Committee co-chairmen Hermes Mallea and Carey Maloney met with Mariela Castro Espin, the Director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual) in Havana on December 24, 2008.  CENESEX has been advocating and educating for LGBT rights, HIV prevention, and gender equality in Cuba. Ms. Castro has been instrumental in passing groundbreaking rights for Cuba’s transsexual population. 

The meeting took place at the Cuban Women’s Federation headquarters.  Mallea and Maloney presented Ms. Castro with a copy of Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America, based on the Library’s landmark exhibition, and a copy of the children’s book, And Tango Makes Three, in Spanish for the CENESEX’s reference library.  The conversation included a group of the Center’s staff and advisors.

Mariela Castro gave a set of past issues of CENESEX’s quarterly publication, “Sexologia y Sociedad” and a copy of her book, “La Transexualidad in Cuba” (CENESEX 2008) to the LGBT Collections.

Photo by Israel Wilfredo Diaz Gomez.