Cuba Universal Health Care Funding Sexual Reassignment Surgery, San Francisco LGBT Community Center Face Financial Crisis, Gay Bashing Reported In New York City, Meredith Viera Apologizes For Man Love Remarks, Outed Jeremy Renner Seen With Supposed Boyfriend

Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, and that country’s foremost gay advocate, has revived, albeit cautiously, Cuba’s program of paying for transsexuals to receive gender reassignment surgery, an indication, hopefully, of a shift in momentum for the advancement of gay rights in Cuba, an opportunity to correct the outrageous abuse gays and lesbians suffered immediately after the post-revolution period.

Officials from San Francisco’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, opening in 2008, are asking the city for a one million dollar line of credit in order to stave off foreclosure. The city-subsidized center, with a staff of twenty-four, offers counselling, job training, HIV prevention, and other programs, and largely depended on private donations, which have declined in recent years. The city itself, like the state, is currently in a fiscal crisis, but city Supervisor Bevan Dufty contends that the center is a vital part of San Francisco.

Police in New York City are investigating a possible hate crime. On March 2nd, a 22 year old Hispanic male was attacked in Brooklyn by five males – all Hispanic – and was taken to an area hospital suffering lacerations to his head and cuts to his face. He told police the men uttered a number of anti-gay slurs during the allegedly attack.

Meredith Viera Monday, during a post-Oscar interview on the Today Show with the some of the cast of The Hurt Locker, made comments that were, well, baffling, suggesting that there were something more than a friendship between co-stars Anthony Mackie and Jeremy Renner. Viera has since apologized via GLADD, saying in part “words are extremely powerful and should never be chosen lightly, even in a lighthearted moment. I apologize to any and all that I offended. My support of the gay and lesbian community is longstanding and well documented. It has not and will never waver.”

This arrives as a certain American tabloid is prepared to run a story while another American tabloid may or may not run a story suggesting Jeremy Renner, the star of the Academy Award winning The Hurt Locker, is gay – which is not too terribly surprising – and that the picture below, of Jeremy leaving the Chateau Marmont last month, is one of his boyfriend.