They have been led for years by Verde Gil Jiménez, a young trans man from Santa Clara.
14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2025 — A small group of 70 Cuban transgender men has the approval of the government and, more importantly, the protection of Mariela Castro. They have been led for years by Verde Gil Jiménez, a young trans man from Santa Clara who travels to Havana weekly—he doesn’t explain how he navigates the transportation crisis—to organize them, and whose pro-regime activism has opened all doors for him.
Despite this, Gil gave an interview to Alma Mater magazine this Tuesday in which he details the difficulties of the group, which has had to self-organize to solve its problems: the lack of medicines, medical care, and public space. Furthermore, their voice has been “traditionally mediated by institutional policies and cultural taboos.”
The Alma Mater report publishes a series of photos of the “jaba” [bag] given to him by the group members: along with sweaters and stickers, there is also a package of testosterone: 250 grams in five intramuscular injection vials. Boxes of this drug—essential for physical transition—with signs in Portuguese and likely originating in Brazil, were on sale in Revolico last February for $44.
The ‘Alma Mater’ report publishes a series of photos with the “bag” given to him by the members of the group.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, the group hasn’t recovered. At that time, Gil says, not only did they lack specialist consultations—”they were paralyzed”—but “hormones were unavailable in pharmacies, and access to gender-affirming surgeries was practically impossible.” Some also saw their health conditions worsen due to the after-effects of the pandemic itself.
Seeking to gain visibility, the group saw the National Center for Sexual Education (Cenesex), run by Raúl Castro’s daughter, as a way to legitimize their activism. It’s one of the few centers allowed in the country, and not without “mandates” from above. When they wrote to the Ministry of Public Health with their “demands,” they already had Mariela Castro’s approval.
Now, when all initiatives—even those aligned with the regime—are viewed with suspicion, the group is more of a “mutual support” society, both for its more than 70 registered members and for those who prefer to remain discreet and not join the official figure. Registration is done via WhatsApp or Facebook, or by speaking in person with a member.
Gil alludes to “various avenues of aid,” but suggests they rely more on themselves and the support of foreign collaborators than on their allies in the government. In addition to Cenesex and other state entities, they are now working with the Father Félix Varela Cultural Center—run by the Catholic Church—and its Liberating Masculinities initiative.
Gil alludes to “different avenues of aid,” but implies that they depend more on themselves and on the support of foreign collaborators than on their allies in the Government.
Other organizations, such as the Christian Student Movement—a pro-regime movement founded in 1960—and the Metropolitan Community Church, which has played a pivotal role in LGBTI rights in the US, also work with the group, which is “thriving in a resource-constrained environment.”
Despite their frequent trips to the capital, Gil says the fuel crisis is taking its toll. “We’ve designed our activities to be both in-person and virtual, recognizing that many colleagues are from the eastern and central parts of the country and can’t travel to Havana, where most of the meetings take place,” he says.
Larian Arias, who shares the group’s leadership with Gil, believes that in Cuba, transgender people are “constantly rendered invisible” at the institutional level. To the challenges his colleague points out, he adds “access to medication, regular medical care, greater information about trans identities , and more inclusive general education.”
In another article, published in 2023 in the same magazine, Gil warned of other problems facing the trans community. He admitted that he had not personally experienced many “episodes of transphobia,” but asserted that there was “a lot of domestic violence” against transgender people in Cuba. “They suffer humiliation in their homes, in educational and work settings. It’s even difficult for them to find stable work,” he asserted.
Just this week, the Translúcidos group—another support network for the trans community, not supported by the government—reported that the board of directors of Havana’s Napoleonic Museum had canceled several activities they had planned to hold at the institution. They also demanded that they remove “all promotion and association of trans people with the Museum’s name from social media.”
In his 2023 interview, Gil alluded to these kinds of obstacles with state institutions.
“This action is not only disrespectful to the trans community, but also reflects a discriminatory and transphobic attitude that has no place in our Cuban society,” they stated, without detailing the reasons for the cancellation. “We will take all appropriate action to ensure that this act does not go unpunished.”
In his 2023 interview, Gil alluded to these kinds of obstacles with state institutions. However, he focused on the practical side of the group’s problems, although he blamed the blockade for all the problems: “The shortage of medicines interrupts or prevents hormone therapy, and it’s difficult to maintain the transition process without stability. The informal market isn’t an option either; the products are often adulterated and sold at expensive prices. I would have to invest a month’s salary to buy one ampoule, which only covers four weeks, and the treatment is for life.”
If nothing is ordinary in the lives of Cuban trans people, Verde Gil’s life is even less so. A resident of Santa Clara, with a Spanish father and a Cuban mother, he graduated in Social Communication from the Central University of Las Villas. Since then, he has unconditionally supported Miguel Díaz-Canel as an activist and has participated in pro-government sit-ins, such as the 2021 Red Handkerchiefs protest in Havana’s Central Park, in response to the Civic March called by the Archipiélago platform.
Gil then asserted that he wasn’t there “to respond to Yunior [García Aguilera, one of the Archipiélago organizers and forced into exile days later], nor to go to Vedado or the Malecón if he marches there.” The sit-in was followed by a period of repression and exile of opposition activists.
Verde’s father, Mariano Gil, traveled to Cuba in 1994 “for love of the Revolution,” as he has said in several interviews . He won the favor of Fidel Castro by giving him one of his paintings, and in 2015, he opened a tourist establishment next to the Armored Train, derailed by Che Guevara’s guerrillas in Santa Clara and transformed into a monument. Filled with objects related to both the regime and the Republic, and with prices unaffordable for the people of Santa Clara, Gil could not have given the place any other name than Café Revolución.
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