QUEERS IN CUBA
by Shawna Hellenius. Vancouver Coordinator, International Feminist Brigade to Cuba
I. HISTORY
A. PRE-REVOLUTION CUBA
In the 1950's, being lesbian or gay in Cuba meant a closeted life in the family and on the job. Cuba had a strong patriarchal culture, with an emphasis on marriage and family. Unemployment was high & had been steadily increasing throughout the decade. For all women, & especially for lesbians, there was continual sexual harassment at work. Lesbians had to pretend to have a boyfriend to avoid sexual harassment and abuse. Gay men had to pretend to have a girlfriend in order to advance on the job. Often, lesbians and gay men would enter into "marriages of convenience."
The '50s was a period of severe sexual repression in Canada and the US. This anti-homosexual atmosphere was part of the effort to get women back into the home after their wartime employment and part of the anticommunist McCarthy campaign. So, homosexual desire was often channeled into illegal and lucrative offshore markets. Havana became a prime spot for the creation of a homosexual underworld to serve US organized crime and for the pleasure of foreign visitors.
About 200,000 gay men of every class, and straight working-class men found employment in Havana as entertainers, servants and prostitutes in the tourism industry, which was controlled by the US Mafia with the blessing of Cuba's dictator, Batista.
This commodification of gay desire in the Havana underworld did not produce any toleration of gay life-styles or spawn a "gay culture" in the larger social arena. Attitudes in traditional workplaces and within the family involved a combination of ridicule and violence toward gay men. Lesbians were less visible due to the overall repression of female sexuality. They were either ignored or made objects of ridicule.
Isolated from mainstream social life and afflicted with guilt, lesbians and gays were used, shamed, abused, and placed in positions of servitude and prostitution. Such was gay Havana in its fabled avant la guerre period.
B. POST-REVOLUTION
The revolution of 1959 destroyed the Havana underworld and initiated the development of a productive economy. The profit motive was removed from homosexual relations, the promoters and overlords of the Havana underground fled, taking many of their gay entertainers with them. The rich in Cuba moved to Miami, also bringing their domestic help, largely gay men.
At the same time, the revolutionary leadership rallied against the remnants of capitalism. Because of the former commodification of homosexuality, gay behaviour was mistaken by Communist Party leaders as merely a "product of bourgeois decadence." And the goal of the revolution was to eliminate any bourgeois influences. This false ideology was supported by Russia, with whom Cuba was establishing trade relations.
Life in Cuba changed for gays and lesbians. Some gays who had been with the old underworld joined counterrevolutionary activities or were blackmailed into them by the CIA. Other gays and lesbians, especially those from working-class backgrounds or students, joined with the revolution. However, this meant going into the closet, temporarily, they hoped. For the progressive gays and lesbians, the revolution responded to their needs. Very few lesbians left the country while many gay men did. This is because the fuller integration of women into Cuban society, increased the status and freedom enjoyed by lesbians under the revolution. For all the gay men and few lesbians who left, there were many more who chose to stay. Their lives had constantly been improving. The revolution might not yet speak to the homosexual in them, but it continued to address other vital aspects. In response, they put the revolution first.
Within the first months of the revolution, the American CIA launched a propaganda campaign encouraging Cubans to emigrate. If enough Cubans left the country, the US government believed, it would undermine the credibility of socialist revolution. This campaign was tailored to appeal to different groups and make them feel threatened by the revolution.
Ironically enough, at this time of the McCarthy era, the US was not legally allowing "sexually deviant" immigrants into the country. But with gay Cubans, the US opportunistically welcomed open homosexuals as long as they denounced the Cuban revolution.
The CIA also targeted gay artists with counterrevolutionary propositions to persuade them to defect, promising generous academic grants and publishing contracts. For lesbians and gays who were well integrated into the revolution, the CIA attempted to blackmail them. For example, Carlos Alberto Montaner, an anti-Castro writer, published two full pages listing names of homosexuals inside Cuba in an attempt to discredit them and to force them to migrate.
The '60s and '70s were already unsettled: 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion; systematic attacks from Florida bases, and internal CIA-sponsored subversion created an increase in military defense in Cuba. Biological sabotage inflicted epidemics on crop harvests. Realistic fears and dangers gave rise to paranoia and anyone who was "different" fell under suspicion.
This growing paranoia, mixed with Stalinist influence resulted in the establishment of UMAP camps (Military Units for the Aid of Production) in 1965. Gay men were among those drafted into the camps, while lesbians, due to their comparative invisibility, were spared. But two years later, following international and national protest, the camps were closed. While short-lived and denounced extensively within and outside Cuba ever since their abolition, the camps remain a dark episode in Cuban history. It is important to note that these camps were work camps, not comparable to Nazi concentration camps. People were not tortured. Camp commanders who were brutal were relieved of duty.
By the late '60s, Cuban attitude toward lesbians and gays was developing in pace with the rest of the world. Homosexuality became described as an illness to be cured, and not a criminal activity to be condemned. By the '70s, gays were no longer seen as "decadent" remnants of capitalism, and homosexuality was no longer seen as a problem but viewed as a form of sexual behaviour requiring study.
II. ADVANCEMENT FOR CUBAN QUEERS
A. PUBLIC OPINION
By the mid-80s, Cuban gays felt much less intimidated. They are now a visible part of street life in downtown Havana. Gay men have freedom to have sex with whomever they want, particularly if it's not publicized. Families respect the privacy of their personal life outside the home. The majority of "known" gays are not hassled at work or in public. Cubans, by custom, are polite and respect one another's privacy.
There is now an increasing awareness and acceptance among Cuban society as a whole of the fact that gays are an inevitable fact of life. More gay spaces are opening up: gay nights at bars and Playas del Este. Semipublic gay parties are common. They are illegal because they charge admission and sell black-market liquor, but police usually turn a blind eye. As far as the state goes, the fiestas have the full support of the CDR, and the neighbors are bought off with free admission.
Although the interior tends to be more conservative toward gays, many gay-positive spaces are opening. In Santa Clara, gay fiestas are just as open as in Havana. Country fairs attract out-of-town gays. The social & cultural centre, located in the heart of the city, becomes transformed into a gay club on the weekend. Its character is obvious to all, and it has the full support of the local government and the Party.
Identity checks are still common occurrences by police, but they no longer go out of their way to single out gays for harassment. As individuals, the Cuban police are no more aggressively homophobic than police are in Canada. Until recently, lesbians and gays could be jailed for three months under the charge of creating a "public scandal." But lesbians and gays still face a fine for acting affectionate in public.
Despite this, one thing does differentiate reaction toward gays in Cuba from other countries: the phenomenon of queer bashing does not exist.
B. ART
Lesbian and gay subthemes are beginning to creep into the arts. While in 1983, there was controversy over showing an American lesbian & gay documentary Word Is Out at the Havana Film Festival, by 1987 there were several gay and lesbian films shown at the festival. Fresa y chocolate was presented at the 1993 Film Festival and played to packed houses from noon to midnight in Havana's major cinema for over three months. About a gay intellectual who falls in love with a straight party militant, it broke new ground with its sympathetic portrayal of homosexuality.
C. CHANGES IN CP POLICY
In 1992 President Fidel Castro declared homosexuality to be "a natural human tendency that must simply be respected."
Homosexuality used to be a barrier to membership in the communist party and the communist youth. The official line on lesbians and gays used to be that what people do with their personal sexual lives is their own business. There was a type of don't ask, don't tell policy in place. This was the situation when I visited Cuba last year. However, by April of this year, our Canadian delegate to the International Encounter of Solidarity Among Women, Marcel Hatch, was told by ICAP officials that this policy had changed. This information was confirmed by a gay friend of Marcel's who is a leader in the communist youth, but he cautioned that while lesbians and gays can be members, they must still show discretion. ICAP also asked us to seek support from Canadian lesbians and gays for Cuba and discussed the possibility of a tour of Cuban lesbians and gays to Canada.
The issue of lesbianism came up during the Women's Conference as well, which shows how the Cuban government has relaxed its prejudices. At the Karl Marx theatre on the final day of the conference, a group of lesbian socialists from Italy and Mexico attempted organize a caucus on Lesbianism. They put up a sign in the theatre lobby. Some Cuban guards took it down -- stating that homosexuality was illegal in Cuba, and the theatre is used for political issues, which homosexuality is not. This happened twice. Then the lesbians approached our Radical Women delegation for assistance. Our delegation leader, Debra O'Gara, talked with the Federation of Cuban Women who immediately confronted and corrected the guard's actions. The signs went back up with full support of the Federation of Cuban Women, and the meeting was held among lesbian participants later. The caucus was a small gathering which decided to network lesbians and gays in the socialist movements around the world to fight for programmatic changes in left organizations.
At Radical Women's meeting with Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, its Canadian liaison asked us directly to explore ways to reach out to First Nations, women, and lesbians and gays in Canada, and to help bring them into the Cuba defense movement.
Finally, the entire conference was gripped by the summary remarks which focused on the need for the international women's movement to show strong solidarity with women of colour, aboriginal women, poor women, and women of all sexualities.
D. LESBIANS & WOMEN'S INDEPENDENCE
In practice, women have been freed from a compulsory mother role and economic dependence on their father or husband. Thanks to improved access to contraceptives, abortion, sexual knowledge, and medical care, birth rates as well as infant mortality have fallen to levels that match and often fall below those of developed industrialized countries. Furthermore, Cuba has an extensive system of daycare centers and boarding schools that have increasingly freed mothers from their homes. Divorce, too, has become much more accessible to Cuban women. Men's economic domination of women and women's forced confinement to maternal and domestic roles came to an end through the revolutionary process.
However, emphasis on the nuclear family remains a problem. Carolina Ayerra, Federation of Cuban Women member and editor of Mujeres Magazine, really signals how advanced the women communists are on the gay question. During the International Feminist Brigade Solidarity Conference, she had this to say, "My personal position is lesbians are more discriminated against than gay men in general because they don't bear children and this is hard because of the pressure of the role of motherhood in Cuba. Lesbians have a right not to have children, but those who don't are hit the hardest socially." Carolina and other Federation of Cuban Women members went on to speak passionately about destroying discrimination against homosexuals.
E. AIDS
Everywhere in the world, AIDS had a dramatic effect on tolerance for gays. But Cuba in unique because it has publicized and educated about the disease, not as a gay disease, but rather, as a sexually transmitted disease regardless of specific sexual practice.
I want to tell you about the famous AIDS sanitarium outside Havana known as El Coco. El Coco was an opulent coconut plantation owned by a slave-owning Batista supporter, who happened to be a drag queen. El Coco is notorious in the international press because when AIDS first broke out in Cuba among soldiers who had fought in the Angola War for independence against the South Africa Apartheid regime, the Cuban military requisitioned El Coco and quarantined sick Cuban soldiers there. While the North American AIDS community condemned this action, Cuba at the early and ignorant stages of the disease acted to protect its population from becoming infected by an epidemic of which no one knew its cause. When the world community learned the methods of communication, Cuba rapidly changed its policy.
Today El Coco is known as the premiere world AIDS treatment centre. Patients are free to come and go. The facility emphasizes quality treatment and education. Patients are encouraged to have their spouse or friend live with them. HIV positive people are paid they'll full wage when they get sick. Cuba has the lowest HIV infection rate on the planet. Out of a population of 11 million people there are 1750 people who are HIV positive. 1290 are men and 459 are women. 928 people are gay or bisexual. Since the beginning of the epidemic, 625 have died. In contrast, of the one million Cubans living in the U.S., over 30,000 are HIV positive and many have died.
The really awful aspect of AIDS in Cuba is that because of the blockade, all of the new drugs we have access to here, known as protease inhibitors, are not available in Cuba because of the blockade. So life expectancy for HIV positive people is greatly reduced. The ugly blockade is cutting life short for AIDS people too.
III. WHAT HOLDS QUEER PROGRESS BACK
A. ABSENCE OF ORGANIZED MOVEMENT
The biggest problem facing Cuban queers is the absence of an organized movement, however, on Mayday in 1994, lesbians and gays marched openly for the first time, and have each year ever since.
Queers for Cuba, a US group, is supported by ICAP and the Federation of Cuban Women, but so far, no independent Cuban gay and lesbian organization has received recognition from the government.
B. BLOCKADE
Another thing hampering gay progress is the severe housing shortage which has come as a result of the economic blockade. Lack of privacy is the biggest constraint on the sexual and relational aspects of the lives of most lesbians & gays. The majority of Cubans live in cramped homes with their entire family. However, some gay couples have managed to secure a home together, and are often out to their entire neighborhood.
IV. RADICAL WOMEN'S POSITION
So this is the situation in Cuba for lesbians and gays. Radical Women believes that the discrimination of lesbians, gays, and other sexual minorities is akin to sexism and must be eradicated, and we have said this on a number of occasions while in Cuba.
We have talked with lesbians and gays, many were militant defenders of the revolution who had no intention to smash the Cuban state or leave Cuba. Their big concern was not being able to be who they are and still fully contribute their experience and skills to building the revolution.
Cuba has not always had a positive position on lesbians and gays - but this is changing and that's what counts -- and much of this change comes directly from the Federation of Cuban Women's leading role in defense of homosexuals and international support from groups like Radical Women, Queers for Cuba, and the Freedom Socialist Party.
I believe that the revolutionary sincerity of any group or country can be measured by its attention and programmatic thrust towards solving the problem of women's oppression, and that of people of colour, and lesbians and gays. On these fronts, Cuba goes continuously forward, learning from its mistakes, and adjusting its course in the most positive ways. Cuba remains the dynamic centre for revolutionary change in the hemisphere and we need to support it by creating a feminist workers state in Canada that joins hands with our sisters and brothers in Cuba to support global revolution.