Transgender woman first to win office in Cuba
A woman elected as a local government delegate has become the first known transgender person to hold public office in Cuba.
Adela Hernandez is a biologically male Cuban who has lived as a female since childhood.
She calls her election an important advance for rights to sexual diversity.
In decades past, Cuban authorities persecuted gay people and others seen as threatening to the revolution. Many were sent to grueling work camps in the countryside.
Hernandez was jailed for two years in the 1980s for “dangerousness.”
Greek prosecutor charges blasphemy over gay Jesus play
A Greek prosecutor is pressing blasphemy charges over a troubled Athens performance of an American play that portrays Jesus as gay.
Officials said no one yet specifically faced the misdemeanor charge, as is allowed by Greek law. Police were tasked Nov. 16 with identifying production and cast members who could be summoned to stand trial.
Performances of U.S. playwright Terrence McNally’s play “Corpus Christi” were cut short last month after protests by Christian activists and ultranationalists.
The charges of malignant blasphemy and insulting religion carry a maximum two-year prison sentence.
Canada: Trans student banned from using male toilets
A transgender male student in Ontario, Canada, has allegedly been barred from using the men’s toilet at school.
James Spencer, 16, said he was told by the school to use the facilities at a fast-food restaurant down the street.
However, officials at Durham Region’s Clarke High School insist they never told the teenager to use an off-campus toilet.
Spencer said he was recently given permission to use a private bathroom reserved for “janitor staff, kitchen staff and students with medical disabilities.”
“I felt like they were saying that to be transgender there’s something wrong and that transgender people need to be segregated,” Spencer said.
The student, who began transitioning from female to male in the 10th grade, was bullied at his old high school and moved in with his sister and enrolled at Clarke.
Nigeria poised to pass antigay bill
A top U.S. human-rights official says he has not discussed with Nigerian lawmakers an antigay bill poised to pass Parliament.
Michael H. Posner, the assistant of state for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, declined to comment directly on the pending legislation during a press conference at the U.S. consulate in Lagos Nov. 16.
But he said human-rights issues must be addressed within societies and “it is very difficult, if not impossible, for [foreign\ governments to force that change.”
The Parliament of Africa’s most populous nation is expected to pass the bill criminalizing gay marriage, gay-advocacy groups and same-sex public displays.
— compiled by Larry Nichols