Cuba's Evolution on Gay Rights

Mariela Castro

With the United States finally beginning to change its failed policies against Cuba - despite the protests of many older Cubans who fled Castro's regime - some believe the evolution Cuba has made on gay rights could be a blue print for easing restrictions on other personal freedoms in the island nation.  One would think that 50 years of a failed policy that has not yielded desired results ought to send a message that remaining on the same course is an exercise in futility.  Of course, don't tell that to the today's GOP which cares little about objective reality and increasingly looks like a large insane asylum.  Personally, I'd like to see travel to Cuban opened up because over time open access to the rest of the world and an influx of capital and ideas is the quickest way to transform Cuba despite the efforts of the Castro regime.  But I digress.  Here are highlights from a New York Times piece on Cuba's evolution on gay rights:

In Cuba, street marches have historically been government-orchestrated events or dissident protests that are swiftly crushed by the authorities. So it was downright startling when, in May 2007, Fidel Castro’s niece sauntered down the street with a small army of drag queens waving gay pride flags.

Long before the Obama administration announced a dramatic shift in Cuba policy on Wednesday, asserting that isolating the island had failed, a couple of Western governments with close ties to the United States saw the potential to help gay Cubans, even though it meant working with a prominent member of the Castro family. Havana’s first observance of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia marked the beginning of a remarkable evolution of gay rights in the most populous island in the Caribbean, a region where hostile attitudes toward sexual minorities remain the norm.

Mariela Castro, the daughter of the current president, Raúl Castro, has led the charge on legislative and societal changes that have given rise to an increasingly visible and empowered community. In the process, she has carved out a rare space for civil society in an authoritarian country where grass-roots movements rarely succeed. Some Western diplomats in Havana have seen the progress on gay rights as a potential blueprint for expansion of other personal freedoms in one of the most oppressed societies on earth.

Norway and Belgium have financially supported Ms. Castro’s organization, the National Center for Sexual Education, offering a test of the merits of supporting certain policies of a government that the United States and European capitals have largely shunned because of its bleak human rights record. As the Obama administration begins carrying out its new Cuba policy, it should draw lessons from the impact others have had by engaging.

“It’s fine to criticize, but you also have to acknowledge that they’ve done good,” said John Petter Opdahl, Norway’s ambassador to Cuba, in a recent interview. Mr. Opdahl, who is gay, said his government gave Ms. Castro’s organization $230,000 over the last two years. “She has taken off a lot of the stigma for most people in the country, and she has made life so much better for so many gay people, not only in Havana but in the provinces.”

After the 2007 march, Ms. Castro, who is straight, began a public campaign to promote tolerance. She persuaded the government in recent years to offer state-paid gender reassignment surgery and hormone treatment for transgender people. Last year, when the Assembly passed a labor code that protected gays and lesbians — but not transgender people — from discrimination in the workplace, Ms. Castro became the first lawmaker in Cuban history to cast a dissenting vote in protest. Her ultimate goal, she said, was codifying full equality under the law.

Gay Cubans say that discrimination remains a problem, particularly outside big cities. Still, last year, a woman in Caribién, a municipality east of Havana, became the country’s first transgender elected official. At the urging of Ms. Castro and gay bloggers, in 2010 Cuba began voting in favor of resolutions supporting gay rights at the United Nations, breaking ranks with allies in Africa and the Caribbean.

The Obama administration has spent millions of dollars promoting gay rights around the world and has made the issue a diplomatic priority. In the Dominican Republic, Washington took a bold stance last year when officials appeared unwilling to accept Wally Brewster, the openly gay entrepreneur President Obama nominated as ambassador. The State Department warned Santo Domingo that if it turned Mr. Brewster down, the country would find itself without an American envoy for a long time.

When Dominican officials acquiesced, they asked that Mr. Brewster be discreet about his sexual orientation. American officials responded that he, like all ambassadors in the region, would be expected to champion gay rights. To make the point, the State Department released a video of Mr. Brewster and his partner expressing their enthusiasm for the new job.

Ms. Machado said most gay rights activists on the island have not accepted support from Washington because its policy toward Cuba was predicated on regime change. “While the United States is the enemy of our state, we can’t work with them,” she said recently in an interview in Havana. “Any support you receive makes you a traitor.”

That entrenched view has stymied American efforts to promote things such as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. President Obama’s changed policy will make engagement with Americans more palatable.

The far right claims to care about human rights even though its actions tell a very different story as the GOP continues to embrace and and support homophobes, white supremacists and those who seek to keep women subservient to men. 

 

Cubans March For Gay Rights In Havana

It is a pretty sad commentary on the false promises of America when Castro's Cuba is on the verge of being more progressive in terms of gay acceptance than the alleged "land of the free." But that seems to be what is steadily occurring with Castro's daughter leading the charge for full gay equality. Moreover, unlike Barack Obama who gives pretty but meaningless speeches, Mariela Castro gets right in the middle of things (she is pictured at center in the photo above). Perhaps Obama needs to give her a call and find out what's really entailed in acting as a fierce advocate for equality. Google News has more details - here are some highlights:
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Hundreds of gay and lesbian activists, some dressed in drag and others sporting multicolored flags representing sexual diversity, marched and danced through the streets of Havana on Saturday along with the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro as part of a celebration aimed at eliminating homophobia around the world.
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Some of the marchers played drums and others walked on stilts as they made their way down a wide avenue in the capital's hip Vedado neighborhood, where they have held a series of debates and workshops ahead of the May 17 celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia, which participants say marks the day in 1990 when the World Health Organization stopped listing homosexuality as a mental illness.
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"We have made progress, but we need to make more progress," said Mariela Castro, a campaigner for gay rights on the island and the leader of Cuba's National Sexual Education Center. She is also the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro.
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The workshops and debates held Saturday dealt with issues such as adoption by gay and lesbian couples and whether to legalize gay marriages, a step Mariela Castro has been pushing for years, so far without success. The week of celebrations culminates Monday.
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President Obama, are you listening?

Diversity is Natural

While the country obviously has many deficiencies and civil freedoms still are greatly restricted, it is nonetheless interesting that Cuba rather than the USA - alleged land of the free - is implementing a government sponsored Anti-Homophobia Campaign. That's right, communist Cuba not the USA. I continue to be appalled that many countries that are typically viewed as not as advanced or not as democratic as the United States are leaving us in the dust in terms of accepting what medical and mental health professionals tell us: being gay is a natural state of affairs for a minority of the population. Nevertheless, the USA continues to have religious extremists imposing their anti-gay religious views on the larger public in denigration of the freedom of religion promised in the U. S. Constitution. I look forward to the day when religious bigotry will be cleansed from the civil laws in this nation. Here are some highlights on Cuba's new anti-homophobia campaign:

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The 2009 campaign for respect for freedom of sexual orientation, under the slogan "Diversity is Natural", will try to contribute to "the education of society in general, with an emphasis on university students, about respect for people's free and responsible sexual orientation and gender identity, as an exercise in equity and social justice."

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The National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX) "cannot do this work on its own, which is why we have called on the youth of the country, who will become the future professionals and leaders of society," said Mariela Castro, the head of CENESEX, which has developed a wide-ranging programme in support of the right to sexual diversity since 2004.

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Castro addressed the opening event of the campaign, a forum and debate held on Mar. 26 at the headquarters of the University Students Federation (FEU) at the University of Havana. There was standing room only at the forum, which was attended by students, university professors, CENESEX staff and representatives of the gay community.

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According to CENESEX's Sexual Diversity Project, the campaign includes educational activities under the National Sex Education Programme, small group meetings, workshops, video-debates, talks and exchanges "to stimulate and promote reflection and debate among university students." "This year we want to focus on audiences capable of being multiplier agents and extending the work, like the university population," said Castro. With this goal in mind, CENESEX initially worked on the campaign design with members of the Young Communist League and the FEU in Havana, and will later branch out into the provinces.

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In an interview with IPS, the head of CENESEX and daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro said the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) will be celebrated in Havana this year on May 16 and will be devoted to young people, and also to families, so that "parents may better understand" their homosexual or transsexual children.

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Not surprisingly, the Roman Catholic Church is not happy with these advances for gays in Cuba.

Raul Castro's Daughter Presides at Government-backed Gay Rights Event

As the Christofascists mobilize in California to attempt to overturn last week's ruling of the California Supreme Court striking down the bans against gay marriage, it is noteworthy and a sad commentary that the government of Cuba is becoming more gay friendly than many in this country - which is allegedly the "land of the free." I continue to believe that fanatic fundamentalist Christians and their man, the Chimperator, and those like him in the GOP pose a serious threat to personal liberties in this country. Hopefully, the GOP will suffer an extreme defeat in November which might perhaps enliven the few remaining moderates left in the Party to throw the Christianists under the bus in order to steer the Party back to some minimal level of rationality. Note how Mariela Castro (pictured at left) references "scientific basis" for sexual orientation - while science is ignored by the whacked out fundamentalists and GOP in this country. Here are some story highlights from MSNBC:
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HAVANA - Cuba's gay community celebrated unprecedented openness — and high-ranking political alliances — with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on Saturday. The meeting at a convention center in Havana's Vedado district may have been the largest gathering of openly gay activists ever on the communist-run island. President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, who has promoted the rights of sexual minorities, presided.

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"This is a very important moment for us, the men and women of Cuba, because for the first time we can gather in this way and speak profoundly and with scientific basis about these topics," said Castro, director of Cuba's Center for Sexual Education. Mariela Castro joined government leaders and hundreds of activists at the one-day conference for the International Day Against Homophobia that featured shows, lectures, panel discussions and book presentations. A station also offered blood-tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

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Cuban state television gave prime-time play Friday to the U.S. film "Brokeback Mountain," which tells the story of two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair.

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Defending equal rights for Cubans, of all sexual orientations, is a key principal of the Cuban revolution led by her uncle Fidel Castro, who overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, she said. "The freedom of sexual choice and gender identity (are) exercises in equality and social justice," she said.

Cuba Considers Sweeping Gay Rights Bill

Once again Cuba - not generally deemed a leader the area of civil rights - is ahead of the USA in terms of granting equal legal rights to all citizens, including gays. As 365gay.com is reporting (http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/03/032708cuba.htm), proposed legislation is going to be introduced into the national assembly which, if enacted, would make Cuba one of the most progressive nations in terms of gay rights. Here are some highlights:

(Havana) Cuban lawmakers will vote in June on a bill that would make the country one of the world's most progressive in LGBT civil rights. The draft legislation would make it illegal to discriminate in jobs and housing against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transpeople. It would recognize same-sex domestic partnerships, although not grant marriage or adoption rights, and it would allow transsexuals to have identity cards showing their true sex. In addition the bill would require the government health service to pay for sex reassignment surgery.

The measure has been championed by Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro. She heads the government-funded National Centre for Sex Education and has been a longtime LGBT rights advocate.

"In Cuba marriage is not as important as the family and at least this way we can guarantee the personal and inheritance rights of homosexuals and transsexuals," she told the BBC. Last month Cuba's Culture Minister Abel Prieto said that he supports gay marriage.