diff --git a/gnu/packages/python.scm b/gnu/packages/python.scm
index b135ab7df1ca24d0fd76091b042afcc8097147cf..702a3332316fe9c9fb85e669787d4e1105764156 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/python.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/python.scm
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ;;; GNU Guix --- Functional package management for GNU
 ;;; Copyright © 2013 Nikita Karetnikov <nikita@karetnikov.org>
-;;; Copyright © 2013, 2014, 2015 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
+;;; Copyright © 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
 ;;; Copyright © 2013, 2014, 2015 Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>
 ;;; Copyright © 2014, 2015 Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>
 ;;; Copyright © 2014 Eric Bavier <bavier@member.fsf.org>
@@ -2940,10 +2940,12 @@ (define-public python-cython
     (description "Cython is an optimising static compiler for both the Python
 programming language and the extended Cython programming language.  It makes
 writing C extensions for Python as easy as Python itself.")
-    (license asl2.0)))
+    (license asl2.0)
+    (properties `((python2-variant . ,(delay python2-cython))))))
 
 (define-public python2-cython
-  (package (inherit (package-with-python2 python-cython))
+  (package (inherit (package-with-python2
+                     (strip-python2-variant python-cython)))
     (name "python2-cython")
     (inputs
      `(("python-2" ,python-2))))) ; this is not automatically changed