LGBT rights in Cuba
| LGBT rights in Cuba | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Same-sex sexual activity legal? | Legal since 1979 |
| Gender identity/expression | SRS provided by the government |
| Military service | Yes. Since 1993. |
| Discrimination protections | Yes, employment only |
| Family rights | |
| Recognition of relationships |
Same-sex marriage constitutionally banned |
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Cuba may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents.
Public antipathy towards LGBT people is high, reflecting regional norms. This has eased somewhat since the 1990s. Educational campaigns on LGBT issues are currently implemented by the National Center for Sex Education, headed by Mariela Castro, President Raúl Castro's daughter.
In pre-revolution Cuba, there were a few LGBT-friendly bars in Cuban cities, such as the St. Michel, the Dirty Dick, and El Gato Tuerto in Havana. But Cuba had strict laws that criminalized homosexuality and targeted gay men for harassment. "[T]o be a maricón (faggot) was to be a social outcast."
[D]iscrete lesbian or gay male identities in the modern sense - identities that are based on self-definition and involve emotional as well as physical aspects of same sex relations - were rare. Erotic loyalty (and, in the case of women, subservience) to the opposite sex was assumed as normal even by homosexuals. Hence, for many Cubans of this era, homosexuality was a mere addendum to customary marital roles. Among others, it was just a profitable commodification of sexual fantasy. For the vast majority, homosexuality made life a shameful and guilt-ridden experience.
Homosexuality was a component of Cuba's thriving prostitution industry, with many gay men drawn into prostitution largely for visitors and servicemen from the United States. Homosexuality also was linked to gambling and crime.
With the profit motive eradicated by the revolution, the superficial tolerance of LGBT persons by the strongly homophobic Cuban society quickly evaporated. Emigration to Miami began immediately, including lesbians and gay men who had worked for United States firms or had done domestic work for the native bourgeoisie. LGBT people who already had lived largely abroad moved away permanently.
[T]he 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 believed to be homosexual ... whereas lesbianism remained unnamed and invisible. Between 1959 and 1980[,] male homosexuals suffered a range of consequences from limited career options to detention in street sweeps to incarceration in labor camps. ... Long hair, tight pants, colorful shirts, so-called effeminate mannerisms, "inappropriate clothing," and "extravagant hairstyles" were seen as visible markers of male homosexuality. Such visible markers not only facilitated enforcement of homosexual repression; more broadly, visibility and gender transgressions themselves constituted a central part of the problem identified by the revolution. Even in the severest period of enforcement, Marvin Leiner reminds us, private homosexual expression was never the main target. Rather, "... the major concern, as it had always been, was with the public display of homosexuality."
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