Repression of gays in Cuba
- Thread starter Ryazan
- Start date
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
wot on earth are you on about OP?
Have you ever been to Cuba? Ever actually seen the gay culture and life which (despite your ill informed soapbox grandstanding) goes on pretty normally from day to day there?
I'd recommend you read a book - MACHOS, MARICONES AND GAYS by Iain Lumsden - if you are seriously interested in the subject rather than just throwing out nonsense to seek a reaction. Lumsden is openly gay and lived, did his university degree research, and wrote this book about gay life iin Cuba, with no negative repercussions for him whatsoever. then I recommend you go and rent the movie FRESA Y CHOCOLATE (Strawberry and Chocolate), by the great Cuban director Gutierrez Alea, which is a charming and heartfelt (and often ironic) little movie about a doctrinaire Communist Cuban student meets and develops an unlikely nonsexual friendship with a camp gay man, who is embittered by things the gov't did in the 60s & 70s, but knows far more about Cuba's art, culture and literature than the boyscout type. It was produced by the Cuban government film board, was shown across the island, and became a huge talking point, transforming many official and unofficial attitudes.
Yes, in the 60s and 70s there were state organised roundups of gays, anti-gay laws and prison camps for gays. It's all been pretty much phased out. (The system as a whole is of course still repressive in many ways; you are still not going to have an easy time of it in Cuba if you are a dissident or a journalist or, for that matter, a poor black youth without relatives in Miami to send you money so you can eat ... but official hostility to and persection of gays has actually gone out of the window.) Of course there is still a lot of homophobic, machista prejudice ... just as there is in most other Latin American countries.
Gay men in Cuba congregate and cruise freely in the centre of most towns; live together as couples (no civil partnerships though); go and dance in predominantly but not exclusively gay bars and discos; can form discussion, solidarity and support groups which are specifically gay. There is a very visible transvestite subculture and they do not live under permanent threat of attack. There's a well established gay claque who show up at the ballet every available night in Havana. Nobody bothers them. (Gay bashing is in fact less likely in Cuba than in the UK.)
And the state's just put on an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe ffs!
so, if your wider point is, leftists in the UK are ill informed about how repressive Cuba is/was in some places, you are totally right, but on the particular theme of 'persecution of gays' you are about as off base as it is possible to be.
Have you ever been to Cuba? Ever actually seen the gay culture and life which (despite your ill informed soapbox grandstanding) goes on pretty normally from day to day there?
I'd recommend you read a book - MACHOS, MARICONES AND GAYS by Iain Lumsden - if you are seriously interested in the subject rather than just throwing out nonsense to seek a reaction. Lumsden is openly gay and lived, did his university degree research, and wrote this book about gay life iin Cuba, with no negative repercussions for him whatsoever. then I recommend you go and rent the movie FRESA Y CHOCOLATE (Strawberry and Chocolate), by the great Cuban director Gutierrez Alea, which is a charming and heartfelt (and often ironic) little movie about a doctrinaire Communist Cuban student meets and develops an unlikely nonsexual friendship with a camp gay man, who is embittered by things the gov't did in the 60s & 70s, but knows far more about Cuba's art, culture and literature than the boyscout type. It was produced by the Cuban government film board, was shown across the island, and became a huge talking point, transforming many official and unofficial attitudes.
Yes, in the 60s and 70s there were state organised roundups of gays, anti-gay laws and prison camps for gays. It's all been pretty much phased out. (The system as a whole is of course still repressive in many ways; you are still not going to have an easy time of it in Cuba if you are a dissident or a journalist or, for that matter, a poor black youth without relatives in Miami to send you money so you can eat ... but official hostility to and persection of gays has actually gone out of the window.) Of course there is still a lot of homophobic, machista prejudice ... just as there is in most other Latin American countries.
Gay men in Cuba congregate and cruise freely in the centre of most towns; live together as couples (no civil partnerships though); go and dance in predominantly but not exclusively gay bars and discos; can form discussion, solidarity and support groups which are specifically gay. There is a very visible transvestite subculture and they do not live under permanent threat of attack. There's a well established gay claque who show up at the ballet every available night in Havana. Nobody bothers them. (Gay bashing is in fact less likely in Cuba than in the UK.)
And the state's just put on an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe ffs!
so, if your wider point is, leftists in the UK are ill informed about how repressive Cuba is/was in some places, you are totally right, but on the particular theme of 'persecution of gays' you are about as off base as it is possible to be.
Ryazan said:
Maybe so Ryazan.
But I've wasted enough evenings at parties and in hetero bars where there's a nice good looking lad throwing off all the right signals but at the end of the night finding out he's simply metrosexual.
I'm a bloke and I like sleeping with blokes, that's the box I'm more than happy in.
Perhaps it is different for women?
JoePolitix
Gone
Ryazan said:
You claim that unamed leftists have failed to denounce the non-existant brutal homophobia that exists in present Cuban society.
To back up this strawman argument you bring in Stalin? I'm done with this thread now.
trabuquera said:
Given the one party state, it would interesting to see how independant these groups are. If I remember correctly there was a Gay and Lesbian group harrassed and closed down by the authorities. perhaps they were straying too far from the party line?
"Lesbian and gay newspapers and organisations are not permitted. The Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, formed in 1994, was suppressed in 1997 and its members arrested".
As much as I dislike some of Tatchell's wobbling, he can be on the ball. It has been some years since, but what free association of gay and lesbian groups is going to be allowed to flourish in Cuba, and to what extent?
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
here you go, son - does this really sound like a state practicing 'brutal repression' of gays to you? 
ARTS-CUBA: OUT OF THE CLOSET, ONTO THE BIG SCREEN
From Inter Press Service - 19/09/2005 (986 words)
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Sep. 16, 2005 (IPS/GIN) -- A government-sponsored HIV/AIDS prevention group and the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) joined forces to organize the country's first-ever gay cinema week. "Sexual Diversity," as the film series is called, ran Monday through Friday at the 23 y 12 movie theatre in downtown Havana. It has been welcomed as an unprecedented surprise by the local gay community, unaccustomed to having its own public spaces. In an interview with IPS, the event was described as "a leap into the public sphere" by Raúl Regueiro, national coordinator of the "men who have sex with other men" (HSH) project, sponsored by the government-run National Center for the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV/AIDS.
An audience of some 300 people loudly applauded a special screening of "The Crying Game," the 1992 UK film in which a heterosexual man falls in love with a beautiful "woman" trapped in a man's body. "We can come across stories with characters like these on the streets of our own city, and we do not expect these men to say 'I am gay,' just as we don't expect transvestites or transsexuals to dress as men," said Regueiro at the opening of the cinema week. "We want everyone to feel happy with themselves and with the society that surrounds them, which in many cases is made up by us, homosexual men," added Regueiro, an AIDS-prevention workers for the last seven years. "Feeling good about our sexuality will enhance our quality of life and put us in a better position to responsibly confront sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS," he stressed. The ultimate goal, said Regueiro, is to broaden the scope of the initiatives undertaken since the year 2000 to diminish the vulnerability of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) community and to promote greater social acceptance of sexual diversity.
The gay cinema week follows in the footsteps of the video screening and discussion sessions held twice monthly for the past five years and similar activities organized in different provinces throughout the country. The HSH project is part of a national AIDS education and prevention program undertaken by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, with the help of financing from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Taking part in the cinema week were community health workers from the state-run National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), made up of transvestites and transsexuals trained to promote AIDS prevention efforts in their community. While the audience was composed mainly of gay men during the first few days of the week, the crowd became more diverse as of Wednesday, with the beginning of the screening of "Angels in America," a TV miniseries by U.S. director Mike Nichols.
"Something like this would have been unimaginable a few years ago," said Benigno García, a 50-year-old Havana resident who found out about the film week at the last minute from a female friend. "It seems that human common sense has finally triumphed," he added, while lamenting the dearth of advance publicity for the event. García was carrying the pamphlets, condoms and lubricants he was handed upon entering the theater by a group of health workers from the HSH project. A nearby poster features a photograph of a father and son, with a caption reading: "He's not exactly like you, but that doesn't make him different. Judging your son for his sexual preferences keeps you from seeing the amazing person you've raised. Understanding him and accepting him is up to you."
Experts believe that the need to prevent HIV/AIDS in the male population, which has been hardest hit by the epidemic in Cuba, has forced the country's authorities to adopt a more open stance on sexual diversity. As of April 26, 6,288 cases of HIV/AIDS had been reported in Cuba, out of a population of 11.2 million. Of the total number of people infected, 5,034 were men, and of these, 86 percent had had sexual relations with other men. There are four men for every one woman living with HIV/AIDS in Cuba, according to official statistics.
Although there is no Cuban legislation penalizing homosexual relations, since a reform of the country's Penal Code in 1997, homophobia is a deeply rooted sentiment in the traditionally "machista" culture of Cuba. Nevertheless, current attitudes reflect a vast improvement over the 1960s, when many gay men were rounded up and subjected to forced labor in the so-called Military Units to Support Production (UMAP). The UMAP program, which lasted barely a year, was followed by the establishment of strict "parameters" that excluded many homosexuals from the education and cultural sectors because of the "bad example" they set for younger generations. For several decades, gays and lesbians were banned from membership in the ruling Communist Party and from certain university programs and job positions, because their sexual preference made them "untrustworthy."
The first timid changes began in the late 1980s, and continued throughout the 1990s. In the opinion of Mariela Castro, the director of CENESEX -- and the niece of President Fidel Castro -- Cuba is currently living "a highly opportune moment" for promoting understanding of sexual diversity. "Unbelievable" was the adjective used to describe the gay cinema week by a homosexual audience member, who recalled the premiere over 10 years ago of "Strawberry and Chocolate," the Oscar-nominated Cuban film about the close friendship formed between a gay man and a young heterosexual communist. "When people stood up to applaud at the end of the movie, you felt like you were experiencing a major social change, and in the end, everything stayed the same as before. Hopefully that won't happen again, and this will actually be the beginning of a whole process," he remarked.
ARTS-CUBA: OUT OF THE CLOSET, ONTO THE BIG SCREEN
From Inter Press Service - 19/09/2005 (986 words)
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Sep. 16, 2005 (IPS/GIN) -- A government-sponsored HIV/AIDS prevention group and the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) joined forces to organize the country's first-ever gay cinema week. "Sexual Diversity," as the film series is called, ran Monday through Friday at the 23 y 12 movie theatre in downtown Havana. It has been welcomed as an unprecedented surprise by the local gay community, unaccustomed to having its own public spaces. In an interview with IPS, the event was described as "a leap into the public sphere" by Raúl Regueiro, national coordinator of the "men who have sex with other men" (HSH) project, sponsored by the government-run National Center for the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV/AIDS.
An audience of some 300 people loudly applauded a special screening of "The Crying Game," the 1992 UK film in which a heterosexual man falls in love with a beautiful "woman" trapped in a man's body. "We can come across stories with characters like these on the streets of our own city, and we do not expect these men to say 'I am gay,' just as we don't expect transvestites or transsexuals to dress as men," said Regueiro at the opening of the cinema week. "We want everyone to feel happy with themselves and with the society that surrounds them, which in many cases is made up by us, homosexual men," added Regueiro, an AIDS-prevention workers for the last seven years. "Feeling good about our sexuality will enhance our quality of life and put us in a better position to responsibly confront sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS," he stressed. The ultimate goal, said Regueiro, is to broaden the scope of the initiatives undertaken since the year 2000 to diminish the vulnerability of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) community and to promote greater social acceptance of sexual diversity.
The gay cinema week follows in the footsteps of the video screening and discussion sessions held twice monthly for the past five years and similar activities organized in different provinces throughout the country. The HSH project is part of a national AIDS education and prevention program undertaken by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, with the help of financing from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Taking part in the cinema week were community health workers from the state-run National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), made up of transvestites and transsexuals trained to promote AIDS prevention efforts in their community. While the audience was composed mainly of gay men during the first few days of the week, the crowd became more diverse as of Wednesday, with the beginning of the screening of "Angels in America," a TV miniseries by U.S. director Mike Nichols.
"Something like this would have been unimaginable a few years ago," said Benigno García, a 50-year-old Havana resident who found out about the film week at the last minute from a female friend. "It seems that human common sense has finally triumphed," he added, while lamenting the dearth of advance publicity for the event. García was carrying the pamphlets, condoms and lubricants he was handed upon entering the theater by a group of health workers from the HSH project. A nearby poster features a photograph of a father and son, with a caption reading: "He's not exactly like you, but that doesn't make him different. Judging your son for his sexual preferences keeps you from seeing the amazing person you've raised. Understanding him and accepting him is up to you."
Experts believe that the need to prevent HIV/AIDS in the male population, which has been hardest hit by the epidemic in Cuba, has forced the country's authorities to adopt a more open stance on sexual diversity. As of April 26, 6,288 cases of HIV/AIDS had been reported in Cuba, out of a population of 11.2 million. Of the total number of people infected, 5,034 were men, and of these, 86 percent had had sexual relations with other men. There are four men for every one woman living with HIV/AIDS in Cuba, according to official statistics.
Although there is no Cuban legislation penalizing homosexual relations, since a reform of the country's Penal Code in 1997, homophobia is a deeply rooted sentiment in the traditionally "machista" culture of Cuba. Nevertheless, current attitudes reflect a vast improvement over the 1960s, when many gay men were rounded up and subjected to forced labor in the so-called Military Units to Support Production (UMAP). The UMAP program, which lasted barely a year, was followed by the establishment of strict "parameters" that excluded many homosexuals from the education and cultural sectors because of the "bad example" they set for younger generations. For several decades, gays and lesbians were banned from membership in the ruling Communist Party and from certain university programs and job positions, because their sexual preference made them "untrustworthy."
The first timid changes began in the late 1980s, and continued throughout the 1990s. In the opinion of Mariela Castro, the director of CENESEX -- and the niece of President Fidel Castro -- Cuba is currently living "a highly opportune moment" for promoting understanding of sexual diversity. "Unbelievable" was the adjective used to describe the gay cinema week by a homosexual audience member, who recalled the premiere over 10 years ago of "Strawberry and Chocolate," the Oscar-nominated Cuban film about the close friendship formed between a gay man and a young heterosexual communist. "When people stood up to applaud at the end of the movie, you felt like you were experiencing a major social change, and in the end, everything stayed the same as before. Hopefully that won't happen again, and this will actually be the beginning of a whole process," he remarked.
JoePolitix
Gone
Ryazan said:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~josephwd/Cuba/delaVega.html
Medical Students for Cuba said:
Ryazan said:Or do western sex-tourists give out free condoms to help out with prevention.
Disgusting "joke".
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
this should wrap up your remaining concerns, Ryazan:
Cuba fights AIDS with free drugs, not quarantine
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA, Nov 30 2005 (Reuters) - When Cuba discovered its first AIDS case in 1986 among soldiers returning from Angola and Mozambique, alarm bells went off in the island's Communist leadership. ....
HIV-positive Cubans, at first mainly heterosexuals but later increasingly homosexuals, were shut away in a sanatorium, a controversial policy that drew international criticism. Cuba stopped quarantining in 1993 and allows people with HIV to stay at home after a course to teach them how to look after themselves and not spread the virus. Universal free access to locally made generic antiretroviral drugs has kept AIDS cases and deaths very low, said the UNAIDS program.
Almost 20 years later, Cuba has one of the lowest rates of HIV infection in the world, a prevalence of less than 0.1 percent of its sexually active population. That's six times less than the United States and a big exception in the Caribbean, the second most-affected region in the world after sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNAIDS.
<editor: snip! Full story here http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=620>
Cuba fights AIDS with free drugs, not quarantine
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA, Nov 30 2005 (Reuters) - When Cuba discovered its first AIDS case in 1986 among soldiers returning from Angola and Mozambique, alarm bells went off in the island's Communist leadership. ....
HIV-positive Cubans, at first mainly heterosexuals but later increasingly homosexuals, were shut away in a sanatorium, a controversial policy that drew international criticism. Cuba stopped quarantining in 1993 and allows people with HIV to stay at home after a course to teach them how to look after themselves and not spread the virus. Universal free access to locally made generic antiretroviral drugs has kept AIDS cases and deaths very low, said the UNAIDS program.
Almost 20 years later, Cuba has one of the lowest rates of HIV infection in the world, a prevalence of less than 0.1 percent of its sexually active population. That's six times less than the United States and a big exception in the Caribbean, the second most-affected region in the world after sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNAIDS.
<editor: snip! Full story here http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=620>
Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
do the initials gg bring anyone to mind?Ryazan said:
trabuquera said:
Yes, interesting stuff, but soundbites from the party does not entirely convince me, considering that one of the biggest problems for HIV sufferers is the avaiability of drugs, many of them having to be donated, some relying on family networks abroad who can guarantee a supply.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
errmm...surely 'unconditional but critical' support is a totally reasonable standpoint?Ryazan said:Not having a personal pop at you.
But, I think that for those that go to demos and the like with Cuba Solidarity and all that should think about the repression of gays over there. Or at least stop making excuses for it.
surely it is reasonable to support Cuba in their anti-imperialist struggle whilst loathing the cuban stae's repression of gays?
also, after reading trabaquera's thread, i feel compelled to say that - whilst cuban culture is entirely in keeping with machismo-driven latin-american societies, I found little evidence of brutal repression when there myself.
JoePolitix
Gone
Red Jezza said:
Whilst I agree with the sentiment of this post I find it's pretext somewhat contradictory. Why should anti-imperialists loath "the cuban state's repression of gays" when there is no evidence of such "brutal repression"?
Dr Steve Williamson, a leading expert on the gay Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, notes that whilst that whist there was repression of gay Cuban’s in the past:
"Cuba has changed dramatically since then, it is by far the most progressive country in Latin America as regards gay rights... Everyone there recognises that mistakes were made - very big mistakes, in fact. There were camps for about 18 months in the 1960s for those who refused to do military service, and it is true that many gay and transvestite prostitutes were sent there.
"Cuba had many deep social problems to cope with after the revolution, and no one is pretending there aren't still other human rights issues in Cuba today. But the Cubans have come to terms with gay issues in an unprecedented way."
Incidentally, I would like to know what Ryazan and other courageous and consistent defenders of universal human rights are doing about the Sri Lankan governments’ use of heavy electricity which is wreaking havoc in that country. As we write particle accelerators across Sri Lanka are causing heavy electricity to fall from power lines and crush cattle and children.
In the words of Bernard Manning: "What a fucking disgrace".
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
OK - make that 'historical, past repression of gays', which certainly happened in cuba, tho' no more so than in any other latino nation, AFAIK, and less than in some.
I accept entirely that they've made huge strides since the 60s.
I accept entirely that they've made huge strides since the 60s.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
Ryazan said:Anybody got the scoop on how adequately Cuba's tin-pot Stalinist state socialism treats gay HIV sufferers?
Or do western sex-tourists give out free condoms to help out with prevention.
The original HIV sufferers in Cuba were all placed under immediate supervision by the authorities, had all their needs provided for them but were isolated from society.
This succesfully prevented an outbreak of HIV AIDS in Cuba, thank God. Compare Cuba to other third world countries where AIDS is absolutely destroying the place (homosexuality not an issue here).
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