Mavi Susel (195? - ) housewife

Susel was abused at school and at home, and father wanted the child out of the family home. After several suicide attempts, Susel became Mavi, was chosen to be Cuba's first surgical transsexual and had the operation in 1988 provided by the state medical service. There was a report on this in Juventud Rebelde which is put out by the Young Communist League. The public reaction was mainly negative, and transgender surgery was suspended for two full decades.

Mavi met a man who wanted to marry her. It was a hurdle to tell him her gender history, but it took it well: "I met a woman, you're a woman".

Mavi's dream was to be a nurse, but ended up caring for her husband and her elderly mother. However she became an assistant at a health centre and joined an amateur singing group.

Film director Marilyn Solaya appeared on television explaining that her new project would be about transsexuals. Susel phoned her the next day, and became herself the focus of the project. The film came out in 2010 financed by DOCTV Latinoamérica, which produces programs for the national broadcasting channels in 14 Latin American countries. However in Cuba it was showed only in cinemas.

• Marilyn Solaya (dir). En el cuerpo equivocado. Mavi Susel (scr) with Mavi Susel as herself. Cuba 52 mins 2010. IMDB
  
• Dalia Acosta. "FILM-CUBA: “I Fought for This, But Not Just to Be a Housewife”". Inter Press Service, Sep 3 2010. www.ipsnews.net/2010/09/film-cuba-i-fought-for-this-but-not-just-to-be-a-housewife.
  
• Dalia Acosta. "I Didn’t Fight to Be Just a Housewife". Havana Times, September 3, 2010. http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=28709.