HAVANA (AP) — Although he delivered powerful punches and spectacular flying kicks in the ring, in the end, he lost the fight. Even so, he does not lose his smile as he remembers with satisfaction the fight that made him the first transgender athlete to officially compete in a Cuban league.
Ely Malik Reyes Núñez, a 26-year-old transgender man with a degree in physical education, competed in Sanda, a contact sport that requires skill and strength and combines martial arts such as Kung Fu with kickboxing, thus opening the most recent chapter in the progress towards inclusion of LGBT communities on the island.
“For this debut I spent around three months training twice a day,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press, while offering a coffee at his home in the municipality of Regla, before going to the nearby sports complex, where he practices. .
Reyes took to the ropeless court that characterizes his sport on June 1 to compete, for the first time, in the men’s 60/65 kilo category.
In his home – with a brightly painted living room next to a perfectly arranged kitchen – the athlete lives with his girlfriend and, to meet his household expenses, since his discipline is not remunerated, he works repairing air conditioners with his brother-in-law.
“At least in my academy, the training that is done is not a game, it is training at a high level and with a lot of perseverance,” he commented proudly.
She has been receiving hormones for two years but does not want complete genital reassignment surgery.
For her transition, she initially visited the Center for Sexual Education (Cenesex) a little over four years ago and met with a psychologist. She then saw endocrinologists and took tests to obtain what Cubans call the “tarjetón,” a booklet to buy medications in pharmacies and which allowed Reyes to obtain the hormones necessary for her transition.
In recent times, and due to the shortage of supplies in the country, he even had to turn to people who brought him testosterone from abroad, but he never gave up. “I am an athlete, I cannot leave my hormones aside… I have to be up to date,” said Reyes.
Now, after a year of initiating the process to change his name, Reyes can legally be called whatever he wishes.
“My mother gave me an X name at the time and I changed it,” added the athlete. “I changed it (on his ID card) last year, after a lot of struggle, I changed it so I could graduate. I didn’t want my (university) degree with a name that didn’t represent me.”
Reyes acknowledged that although he personally always imposed respect for his gender identity, he did perceive discrimination, especially in the suspicious looks of many people on the street. “Educating society is not done in two days,” he said.
An example of what is still missing, the athlete explained, is his own identity card: although it now shows the name he chose, it still has an “F” for feminine, since Cuban legislation establishes that in order to change this aspect on the document, the person should have a complete genital reassignment.
Reyes indicated that for him, a solution would be the approval of a Gender Law, but activists consulted by AP pointed out that the obstacle could be resolved sooner, in the new Civil Registry law that is being worked on in the National Assembly of People’s Power – the Parliament —which would allow people to change the gender of their ID or eliminate this box.
Both the updating of the standard for Civil Registry and the explicit right to gender identity are possible, after the approval of the Constitution in 2019, which subsequently gave way to a Family Code approved in 2022 – through a plebiscite – and which, among others, allowed equal marriage, the adoption of children by gay couples and surrogacy.
This legislation and the recognition of sexual rights in recent decades radically changed the limitations that Cuba —and many countries— imposed on the LGBT community in the last century.
However, the referendum on the Family Code, widely debated and approved by the vast majority, also exposed a fragment of society with strong roots in its colonial and patriarchal past. Even groups of evangelicals rejected the Code and former veterans of the socialist revolution did not consent to the inclusions.
And although Reyes’ identity card formally identifies her as a female, for now, the sports authorities decided to accept her male status, based on her hormone treatments, medical reports and her self-identification, and consequently allow her to participate in the men’s category in the competition held at the beginning of June by the Cuban Fighters League.
The registration process was handled by coach Frank Cazón Cárdenas.
“It’s something new. “It is a challenge that I have taken on with a lot of love,” Cazón, 50, also president of the Sanda Community in Cuba, told the AP. He had known Reyes since childhood. “Accepting him (Reyes) and seeing him as what he really wants to be and making his dream come true is a challenge.”
The instructor explained that he had worked on two levels, on the one hand talking to Sanda’s men’s team, with whom Reyes had to train for his fight; and on the other, knock on all doors to obtain approval from the powerful Sports Institute (Inder), the agency that officially directs all policies in this matter and that finally authorized Reyes’ participation in the men’s category.
Both Cazón and his pupil acknowledged being aware of the global sports controversy over the inclusion of transgender athletes. The most notorious case is that of the American swimmer Lia Thomas, whose participation in the women’s category, as a transgender woman, raised questions about the possible disadvantages that other competitors could have compared to a colleague who was born a man.
Reyes’ situation is the opposite: her efforts are geared towards competing with male athletes, so she must make a greater effort.
“The fundamental objective, which was victory, was not met,” said Cazón, but “the parameters that we had set for their training, their development from the physical and technical aspects; and we continue working in that direction.”
From the point of view of the LGBT community, Reyes’ participation in the fight was hailed as part of the fight for diversity on the island.
“It was only a matter of time before Inder authorized the participation of a transgender athlete in an official competition on the island,” Francisco “Paquito” Rodríguez Cruz, a renowned and veteran LGBT rights activist, told the AP. in Cuba. “Because in reality it is the logical consequence of everything that has been done in the last 15 or 20 years,” he added.
“Evidently all of this is a cultural process of change that is still controversial,” said Rodríguez. “Women’s boxing recently started (in Cuba), which was also taboo for a long time. In other words, things are moving…in this area of sport that we cannot ignore.”
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Andrea Rodríguez is in X like www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP
