“What am I going to be able to do here in Cuba, what am I going to build here?”

Havana Cuba. – “There is a lot of discrimination; Even the authorities show that we live in a sexist society that hates homosexuality,” denounces Vanessa Aballes Cruz, a young Cuban trans woman who prostitutes herself on the streets of Havana to earn income and make her dream come true: leaving the Island.

The young woman is 20 years old and about 12 months ago she emigrated to the capital from Majibacoa, in the province of Las Tunas.

“I came to seek life, to try to change my life, to fight to leave Cuba and give myself a better future. Here [en La Habana] I finished high school with a general average of 98, but I left because here [en Cuba] “School doesn’t offer anything; there is no future here. Teachers, doctors, in short, any professional… they all want to leave the country because they have no life here,” he lamented.

Vanessa told CubaNet which at the beginning of June was attacked near the Coppelia ice cream parlor, in El Vedado. “They gave me a goes into “They beat me so much that I lost consciousness and they stole 15,000 pesos, which was what I had in my wallet,” he said.

“I went to the Zapata and C Police Station to file a complaint. I said everything that had happened to me and it was for fun. There are no rights in this country,” she complained in an interview with CubaNet.

The young woman explained that the Police “the only thing they did” was question her presence in that area at night.

“There is discrimination everywhere. They [las autoridades] They paint everything in bright colors when in reality it is not like that because of the rejection, the mistreatment that I face on the street, from people, from the police.”

“And that’s why I want to leave, because there is no future for trans people here; and I want to look pretty, have surgery, fight for my dreams. But what am I going to be able to do here, what am I going to build here? ”She asked herself.

In the first two decades of the nascent Cuban Revolution, the regime maintained constant persecution against LGBTIQ+ people, even confining them in forced labor camps called Military Production Support Units (UMAP) for their alleged “rehabilitation”.

And, in 2022, although it was submitted to a popular referendum unlike other laws, the Cuban Parliament approved a new Family Code that allows marriage between people of the same sex/gender and homoparental adoption.

Vanessa, however, complains that CENESEX is another Cuban institution that does not fulfill its purpose. “Why would I go there to explain what happened to me and ask for their support if I know they are not going to give it to me?” she replies. CubaNet.

“The other thing is that, since I am a prostitute, before defending myself, the first thing they are going to do is question my reasons,” he also considered.

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