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What life was like for LGBT Cubans when Bernie Sanders was praising Castro
Allan Brauer ?@allanbrauer 6m6 minutes agoThis is what life for #LGBT Cubans was like when @BernieSanders was praising Castro. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/hiding-cuba-crimes-behind-gay-rights-lies-article-1.1098015 …
On December 7, 1990, Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas ended his life. Forced into exile because of his political dissidence, and dying slowly of AIDS, he could no longer withstand the physical and mental torment of the disease. His brief suicide note, expressing contentment for a life well lived, nonetheless conveyed a sense of burning rage. “Persons near me are in no way responsible for my decision,” wrote Arenas, whose life Julian Schnabel portrayed elegiacally in his adaptation of Arenas’ memoir “Before Night Falls.”
“There is only one person I hold accountable: Fidel Castro.”
Like countless other gay Cubans, many of whom were executed or rounded up into concentration camps and worked to death in the name of Socialist revolution, Arenas was persecuted for his sexuality. So one can only imagine how he would react to the recent spectacle at the New York Public Library, in which a roomful of gay activists warmly welcomed a high-ranking representative from that despicable regime.
On May 29, Mariela Castro Espin, the niece of Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro and the daughter of its present leader, Raul, delivered a talk at an event organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Back in Cuba, Castro (who is heterosexual) heads something called the National Center for Sex Education and is a prominent supporter of gay marriage. Asked about the regime’s interment of HIV-positive people, Castro “seemed to talk around the issue,” according to Gay City News. Nonetheless, she received a standing ovation.
In isolation, Castro’s support for gays is laudable. But her campaign for gay rights, such as it is, must be seen within the context of the repression that the Castro regime has inflicted upon the Cuban people for five decades.
The Castro brothers are wise enough to read international political currents; revolutionary machismo isn’t in vogue like it was in the 1960s. They know that a sure way to warm the hearts of progressives is to pledge support for some nebulous concept of “gay rights.” Never mind Cuban gays — like all citizens of Cuba save high-ranking members of the Communist Party — do not enjoy basic liberties like freedom of speech or religion. They cannot join an independent labor union or vote. When it comes to gay life in Cuba, “Not much has changed since Reinaldo Arenas’ time.”
That assessment doesn’t come from “terrorist groups based in Miami” or the “mediocre yellow press,” as Castro recently described her critics in a radio interview. It comes from In These Times, a left-wing American magazine that publishes the likes of Noam Chomsky. Three years ago, it ran a special feature on Cuba, including an in-depth report about homosexuality.
Government harassment of gays is routine, the magazine reported, and while gays may no longer be herded into concentration camps and worked to death, they are still arrested by police simply for their sexual orientation. “Gays are routinely picked up en masse on the streets, beaten, jailed indefinitely,” Herb Sosa of the Miami-based, Hispanic LGBT organization Unity Coalition told In These Times.
In a November 2010 vote at the United Nations, Cuba was the only Latin American country to support the removal of “sexual orientation” from a list, alongside religion, ethnicity and race, of prejudicial motives for murder. When the clause was reinserted after an international outcry and the measure returned for a vote, Cuba abstained...
read: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/hiding-cuba-crimes-behind-gay-rights-lies-article-1.1098015
121 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
The Daily news is not the "candidate's campaign".
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/calif-dem-slammed-inflammatory-tweet-sen-ted-cruz-aide-article-1.1462716
My mistake.. apparently Mr. Bauer wasn't the author of the Daily News piece.. he tweeted it or something.. still...
My mistake.. apparently Mr. Bauer wasn't the author of the Daily News piece.. he tweeted it or something.. still...
Now, I'm as much a fan of over-the-top rhetoric as anybody... I have virtually no boundaries when it comes to insulting people who so richly deserve it, but then, I'm not a paid representative (communications chair no fucking less) of the official Democratic fucking Party.... 
Not to mention the idiot is a contributor to Spamdan's propaganda blog.
Keep 'em coming.
to believe he was okay with Cuba's human rights violations in 1985?
By: Rachel Evans
Cuba will be holding a mass gay wedding as its main event for May 17 - the International Day of Action against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT).
Cuba will be holding a mass gay wedding as its main event for the annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) pride parade there on May 17 - the International Day of Action against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT). The event is organised by the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), which forms part of an awareness campaign aimed at eliminating prejudice, and granting full legal rights to Cuba’s LGBT couples.
The weddings will not be recognised by the Cuban government, because the revolutionary government has not passed marriage equality laws yet. While this needs to be rectified, Cuba is now a leading Latin America country on LGBT rights. A rainbow revolution is being led by Mariela Castro, daughter of feminist revolutionary Vilma Espin and current president Raul Castro.
Espin is internationally renowned. A sexologist by training, she edits Sexology and Society, a medical journal published in Cuba. In an interview in 2006 with Gail Reed, published in the journal Health and Medical News of Cuba: Espin says that CENESEX’s goals are to contribute towards, “the development of a culture of sexuality that is full, pleasurable and responsible, as well as to promote the full exercise of sexual rights.”
The weddings will not be recognised by the Cuban government, because the revolutionary government has not passed marriage equality laws yet. While this needs to be rectified, Cuba is now a leading Latin America country on LGBT rights. A rainbow revolution is being led by Mariela Castro, daughter of feminist revolutionary Vilma Espin and current president Raul Castro.
Espin is internationally renowned. A sexologist by training, she edits Sexology and Society, a medical journal published in Cuba. In an interview in 2006 with Gail Reed, published in the journal Health and Medical News of Cuba: Espin says that CENESEX’s goals are to contribute towards, “the development of a culture of sexuality that is full, pleasurable and responsible, as well as to promote the full exercise of sexual rights.”
In reality, Cuba has been advancing a very consistently progressive sex and gender rights program. In 2007, Ricardo Alarcon, then president of Cuba’s National Assembly, stated at the assembly meeting, “We have to abolish any form of discrimination against homosexuality... Socialism should be a society that does not exclude anybody.” Homophobic laws began to be repealed in 1973, and by 2011, no mention of homosexuality exists in legislation. The first sex change operation to take place in Cuba was in 1988. Sex reassignment surgery, as part of public health care in Cuba was institutionalized on a large scale in 2008. Like all medical procedures in Cuba, it is free. Assisted reproductive technology for lesbian couples became available in 2008.
In Cuba, For May 17, all across the country, IDAHOT events have been organized. It is only a matter of time before Cuba catches up with Argentina, and legalizes same-sex marriage and adoption rights. In Cuba, homophobia in state policy and popular culture, is low compared to the rest of Latin America and the US. Indeed, thanks to the efforts of the LGBTQI community, CENESEX, and Mariela Castro, today Cuba is more advanced in rainbow rights than most countries in the global South and the US.
Full article: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Cuba-Leading-the-Way-in-Rainbow-Rights-20150515-0013.html
Star Member Judi Lynn (101,642 posts)
1. Great step forward. Do you recall that Cuba was the first country to have a gay tv serial?
What's more, people all over the country watched it when it came on.
How many other Latin American countries have their own gay tv serial? I don't know of any others.
From Che to gay – Cuba’s awakening
With its old time cars and colonial cities, Cuba can seem stuck in a time warp. But with the Caribbean island’s relations with the US thawing now may be the time to visit before it changes forever.
Benedict Brook — February 9, 2015
THE announcement in December by US President Barack Obama that the country would start normalising relations with Cuba was a long time coming but nonetheless surprising.
Like two squabbling cousins who can’t quite remember what originally set them at odds, Cuba and the US seemed unable to let bygones be bygones. But now, it seems that whole messy business with the missiles is to be left to the history books.
The end of an era is coming and change is inevitable. No more will Canadians have a tropical getaway free of their southern cousins, while the aging 1950s American automobiles (there are said to be some 60,000 still gracing Cuba’s roads) will surely be replaced by efficient and economical hatchbacks. Perhaps now is the time to visit a country if not on the cusp of a political revolution then maybe an economic evolution.
One thing that has certainly evolved is Cuba’s attitude towards gay people. Homosexuality was legalised in 1979 – some 25 years before nearby Florida – and now the seaside capital of Havana boasts a small but energetic gay scene.
Drag is the daily bread at Fashion Bar while Humboldt 52 serves up a heady cocktail of white rum, Latin and western pop and same-sex salsa. In fact, this Caribbean country is increasingly becoming an LGBTI destination with Sydney travel agency Orange Journeys offering a nine-day tour that promises white sandy beaches, dinner under the stars in tobacco fields and even dancing lessons.
More:
http://www.starobserver.com.au/life-style/travel-life-style/from-che-to-gay-cubas-awakening/132214
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110840719#post1
naaman fletcher Donating Member
Original message
For Cuba's gay community, Castro apology opens old wounds
HAVANA — Fidel Castro's recent admission that his government discriminated against gays during the 1960s and 1970s has opened old wounds among Cuba's gay community, and sparked a long-stifled discussion about homophobia here.
In an interview with Mexico's La Jornada newspaper earlier this month, the 84-year-old former president confessed that Cuba's revolution -- synonymous in his thinking with progressive views on race and class -- oppressed homosexuals as deviants.
Cubans who suffered societal homophobia and government oppression said it did not take much for a gay man to be locked up for months at a time.
"I served six months in prison just for having plucked my eyebrows," said Francisco Garcia, 45, who goes by the name "Sisi."
"In those days, if they figured out you were gay, out of their own ignorance they viewed it as an aberration, and they committed barbarous acts," he said.
Some of the worst oppression was carried out at Cuba's now-defunct Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs, established in 1965 to stamp out "counterrevolutionary" values.
The forced labor camps for re-education and rehabilitation run by UMAP, were shut down in 1968 when Castro became aware of some of the cruelty going on there.
But even after the camps closed, oppression against gays continued, instigated by members of the local Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs), block monitors who often turned in their gay neighbors.
Discrimination against homosexuals in the 1970s was particularly hard on gay artists and writers, who often were disgraced and marginalized, or in some cases even driven into exile.
The plight of Cuba's gay community was the subject of the 1993 film "Fresa y Chocolate" -- "Strawberry and Chocolate."
That hit movie, one of the most celebrated Latin American films of the 1990's, is set in Havana during the late 1970's, and deals with the budding friendship between a bigoted, heterosexual university student and an older, decadent homosexual artist.
Another film that opened Cuban eyes to the plight of gays 17 years ago was the documentary titled, "En el Cuerpo Equivocado" (In the Wrong Body) -- about a man who makes the difficult transition to a female identity, despite society's opprobrium.
Not only gays, but Catholics too were the targets of discrimination and oppression. Alberto Gonzalez, 67, recalled that the mere fact of having been baptized made him a social outcast.
He was taken away from his family and made to do hard labor at a camp run by UMAP.
"It was a sad, painful time and frustrating time," Gonzalez said.
"My father was a member of the communist party and he even justified it."
Since that time, the situation has greatly improved for gays and lesbians in Cuba. Fidel Castro's niece Mariela -- the daughter of President Raul Castro -- heads the National Sex Education Center and has been campaigning for years for greater rights for gays and transsexuals.
Charlimar, 23, works as a street performer in a transvestite show that has been known to draw up to 2,000 people -- something impossible in an earlier era.
Gender reassignment surgery also can be had more easily in Cuba today, but same-sex marriage is not legal. Mariela Castro in January said that even now there is more than a little reticence towards homosexuality in the Communist Party.
One gay Cuban, a successful professional dancer who did not want to be named, said Castro's apology was not enough to heal all wounds, but was nevertheless an important start.
"It's a belated gesture, but a brave and necesary one if we're ever going to make progress," he said.
Alberto Gonzalez, who now is a pastor, also has been heartened by Castro's belated apology. There is always time to acknowledge one's mistakes," he said.
"Fidel made a brave, historic effort to make amends," he added.
But for many in the gay community, Fidel Castro's apology can not wipe away decades of pain and humiliation.
"Who can make up for all the suffering?" asked Aliomar Janjaker, 33, who carries in his pocket a copy of a 1965 interview in which Fidel Castro calls homosexuality "a deviation that clashes" with being "a true revolutionary" and a "militant communist."
And another homosexual man said he cares less about the former president's regrets about the past than the quality of life for gays in today's Cuba.
Fidel's apology means nothing," said Mario Delgado "as long as the police don't leave us alone."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5inFM...
Glad to see he's come around. The Castros treated gay people terribly for many years.
*************************
Is Cuba becoming a haven for LGBT rights?
Cuba offers free sex change surgeries and government-sanctioned Pride marches, but activists say more change is needed.
Creede Newton | 02 Aug 2015
Yasmin Portales has been working to improve the lives of Cuba's LGBT [Creede Newton/Al Jazeera]
Havana, Cuba - Walking down the Malecon, Havana's broad coastal esplanade that runs past extravagant hotels built when Cuba was the playground of the United States' upper class, one can occasionally see a same-sex couple holding hands or stealing a kiss.
Cuba, the socialist island nation and Cold War foe of the US, has made efforts to present itself as a Latin American bastion for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) individuals in the past decade.
Cuba's constitution bans "any form of discrimination harmful to human dignity", and gender reassignment surgeries have been available under its national healthcare, free of charge, since 2008.
It wasn't always this way.
At the beginning of Cuba's socialist revolution, Fidel Castro's regime actively oppressed LGBT Cubans, even sending them to prisons and work camps.
Since 1979, however, there has been a gradual change in Cuban policy towards the LGBT community.
In 2010, former president Fidel Castro went as far as to accept blame for the discrimination that LGBT Cubans faced after his revolution triumphed, referring to it as a " great injustice ".
"Things have definitely changed over the past two decades," said Yasmin Portales, the 36-year-old founder of Proyecto Arcoiris (PA), Spanish for the "Rainbow Project" - an independent, anti-capitalist collective of LGBT activists founded in 2011.
"But there's still many changes that need to take place," Portales said.
Cuba offers free sex change surgeries and government-sanctioned Pride marches, but activists say more change is needed.
Creede Newton | 02 Aug 2015
Yasmin Portales has been working to improve the lives of Cuba's LGBT [Creede Newton/Al Jazeera]
Havana, Cuba - Walking down the Malecon, Havana's broad coastal esplanade that runs past extravagant hotels built when Cuba was the playground of the United States' upper class, one can occasionally see a same-sex couple holding hands or stealing a kiss.
Cuba, the socialist island nation and Cold War foe of the US, has made efforts to present itself as a Latin American bastion for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) individuals in the past decade.
Cuba's constitution bans "any form of discrimination harmful to human dignity", and gender reassignment surgeries have been available under its national healthcare, free of charge, since 2008.
It wasn't always this way.
At the beginning of Cuba's socialist revolution, Fidel Castro's regime actively oppressed LGBT Cubans, even sending them to prisons and work camps.
Since 1979, however, there has been a gradual change in Cuban policy towards the LGBT community.
In 2010, former president Fidel Castro went as far as to accept blame for the discrimination that LGBT Cubans faced after his revolution triumphed, referring to it as a " great injustice ".
"Things have definitely changed over the past two decades," said Yasmin Portales, the 36-year-old founder of Proyecto Arcoiris (PA), Spanish for the "Rainbow Project" - an independent, anti-capitalist collective of LGBT activists founded in 2011.
"But there's still many changes that need to take place," Portales said.
Full article: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/07/cuba-haven-lgbt-rights-150727104541812.html
Cuba has come a long way - I so wish many other countries would do the same.
