LGBT Cubans marched alongside friends, family members and supporters down the streets of Havana, in the eighth Annual March against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Although over 1,000 participants may not sound as much in comparison to Pride parades celebrated in other parts of the world, the figure is quite large in a country where these kinds of public displays were out of the question until recently.

The National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), directed by the daughter of President Raul Castro, Mariela Castro, has played a major role in this change. Mariela sponsored a religious blessing ceremony for gay couples in a dramatic sign of the changing face of a communist island that had a long history of persecuting homosexuals under her family’s rule. Read More