LGBTQ IN CUBA

LGBTQ, Cuba Today, Cuban History

Before 1959, some gay bars existed in Cuban cities even though national laws criminalized homosexuality and gay men in particular. After the revolution, things got much more difficult for those perceived to be gay.

Imaginate que un día descubres que tu tío fue expulsado del país por ser gay.

Imagine that one day you discover that your Uncle was kicked out of the country for being gay.  – Yaima monologue ¡BIENVENIDOS BLANCOS!

“The homophobia and heterosexism that already existed … became more systematized and institutionalized. Gender and sexuality explicitly entered political discourse even as vaguely worded laws increasingly targeted gender-transgressive men who were believed to be homosexual … whereas lesbianism remained unnamed and invisible.”

In the 1960’s through the 1980’s there were over 200 labor camps and men who were less macho were incarcerated, forced into prison labor camps, and at times kicked out of Cuba. Fidel Castro say the gay community as a threat to military order and their very existence to be counter-revolutionary. Castro declared that “in the country, there are no homosexuals”

Castro explained his reasoning in a 1965 interview:

[W]e would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct that would enable us to consider him a true Revolutionary, a true Communist militant. A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant Communist must be.

Furthermore, gays and lesbians were expelled from the Communist Party and lost their jobs. Students could be kicked out of universities and effeminate boys were forced to undergo conversion therapy. Despite 1979 laws that decriminalized homosexuality, gays were a significant percentage of the 125,000 Cubans who Castro let immigrate to the US via the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

March 2016 http://www.lgl.org

In 2010, Fidel Castro was a known homophobic person yet he kind of took responsibility for the “great injustice” that gay people faced under his regime. His regret, he claimed stemmed from oversight because he was too busy fending off imperialism to prevent discrimination and persecution.

Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela Castro, runs the Cuban National Center for Sex Education and is an LGBTQ activist. Her organization has worked on AIDS prevention and campaigned for transgender rights that resulted in legal gender changes. This led to the 2008 law that covers gender reassignment surgery under Cuban healthcare.

Mariela’s March: Cuba’s LGBT Revolution