Adela Hernández is a

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

n politician."Transgender Man 1st to Win Office in Cuba"

ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to: * ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation * ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company ABC News may a ...

, November 16, 2012. Elected to the municipal council of

Caibarién Caibarién is a municipality city in the Villa Clara Province, Villa Clara province of Cuba. Caibarién is known as "La Villa Blanca" () for its sands and beaches. They are famous for their "Parrandas" (Carnivals) along with Remedios, Cuba, Reme ...

in the

Villa Clara Province Villa Clara is one of the provinces of Cuba. It is located in the central region of the island bordering on the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Matanzas Province to the west, Sancti Spiritus Province to the east, and Cienfuegos Province to the Sou ...

in November 2012, she is the first

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

person ever elected to political office in Cuba.

Early life

In 1962, Hernández was born in a sugar town in central Cuba. Early on, Adela was interested in women’s clothing. Hernández had her first sexual contact “too young,” at the age of 7 with a 21-year-old man. Adela Hernández’s family disowned her. At the age of 16, her father, a distillery worker, reported her to the police. She spent two years in prison in the 1980s on charges that Adela describes as “social dangerousness.”

Gender Identity

When Adela Hernández entered office, she was still legally Jose Agustin Hernandez since she had not undergone sex-change surgery. However, on May 20, 2013, the first transgender woman received a photo ID since 1997 with her preferred name and gender identity without undergoing sex reassignment surgery. Adela Hernández expressed that she started the process of applying for a name change on her ID card.

Career

She later worked as a hospital janitor, a nurse, an electrocardiogram technician, and a drag queen. She also became the head of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution on her block and a member of the neighborhood watch committee. Alberto Hernández, a farmer, nominated Adela because she was blunt and hardworking. Adela won in a run-off vote of 280 to 170. Hernández represented 2,000 residents of her neighborhood. In 2013, the neighborhood was routinely flooded and some houses experienced no running water. Adela got the authorities to provide running water at the local clinic, procured lights for the main street, and got the ration store to provide extra milk for the children. She was eligible for election to the

National Assembly of People's Power The National Assembly of People's Power () is the supreme organ of power of the Republic of Cuba. It is the only branch of government in the state, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs are subservient to it. It is currently ...

in 2013, but she was not picked from a list of town councilors.

References

Transgender women politicians Cuban LGBTQ politicians Cuban transgender people Living people People from Caibarién Janitors 1962 births 21st-century Cuban LGBTQ people 21st-century Cuban women politicians {{Cuba-politician-stub