Lisset Díaz and Liusba Grajales became the first lesbian couple to formalize their marriage in Cuba on October 21. The Ministry of Justice assures that 75 same-sex couples were married in the first month of validity of the new Family Code.
The couple celebrated a small ceremony in the province of Villa Clara, accompanied by their two daughters, Laura, 11, and Ainhoa, three. “We have built a home”, added Díaz, a 34-year-old dancer, for whom the marriage will protect the minors, who previously would not have had the right to custody if something happened to one of the mothers.
The women explained that the youngest of their daughters was born through home insemination, a right that previously only had same-sex couples.
“Love is love, as it happens. Without imposition, without prejudice,” Grajales, administrator of the Central University of Las Villas, told the AP news agency. The woman assured that her daughters have been educated in that they come from a “different family”.
The Family Code, with which same-sex marriages are authorized, was approved in a referendum on September 25 with 66.5% in favor and 25.8% abstaining. Seven days after the entry into force, a the first union of two people of the same sex, Alberto and José, from Manzanillo, Granma.
The women explained that the youngest of their daughters was born through home insemination, a right that previously only had same-sex couples.
The General Directorate of Notaries and Public Registries of the Ministry of Justice records that in the first month of the code, 75 marriages were celebrated between same-sex couples, 2.2% of the 3,300 unions formalized during October.
Olga Lidia Pérez Díaz, director of the institution, assured that the Directorate of Notaries had prepared for a greater demand, but believes that “the population is in a stage of consultation.” “We know the intention of many homosexual couples who want to get married, but they have only gone to ask,” the official said according to a note of the official newspaper workers.
Pérez Díaz assured that there are couples who were married abroad and have submitted an application to the consulates to have their marriage recognized in Cuba. “We also had a case of a couple in Matanzas who had a baby and chose to register it with the mother’s last name first. All these changes will take their level to the extent that people have more mastery of the code,” he insisted. .
Similarly, in the first month of validity of the new norm, eight patrimonial agreements have been registered, of which three correspond to food contracts, that is, a person who agrees to take care of another in exchange for receiving a good at future. There are also nine de facto affective unions, including that of a same-sex couple, and seven settlement deeds for dispositive acts of the family home (having the couple’s approval to sell a property).
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