In Matanzas, beginning in 2013, a group of LBGTI artists built an alliance with the Afro-Cuban population in their barrio, Pueblo Nuevo. Together, they got permissions and funding to restore a historic building and clear a rubbish-filled street so as to create a new street: The Callejón de las Tradiciones. The Christian Centre for Reflection and Dialogue supported the AfroAtenAs project, and opened a channel to the Embassy of Canada in Cuba, whose development office provided financial support.
The commission that is drafting Cuba’s new family law—the “Código de las Familias” that will allow same-sex marriage—is near the end of its work. On Sept. 7, the government announced that the new law will be brought to the National Assembly of People’s Power for approval, and then be put to referendum.
A day earlier, the commission heard from Rev. Dr. Ofelia Ortega. Now 85, Ofelia has been a leading proponent of change, speaking out while many other religious leaders are either afraid to engage or are opposed to change.
In 1967, Ofelia Ortega was the first woman to be ordained in Cuba’s Presbyterian-Reformed Church. She served the World Council of Churches as its theological education secretary from 1988 to 1997. She returned to Cuba to serve as rector of the Matanzas seminary, and later created the “Christian Institute for Gender Studies.” The institute provides space for reflection, training and exchange on issues related to gender justice in Cuba and throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Ofelia has also served in Cuba’s parliament (the National Assembly of People’s Power) and as president for Latin America of the WCC.
A decade of debate is likely to produce a law that is broadly inclusive—not just of equal marriage and common-law unions, but of the wide variety of family relationships in Cuba. Drafters speak of “ethical and spiritual values,” and of content that is legal and also educational. In her presentation, Ofelia said that beyond the legal issues, this is “a question of life.”
Some recent examples of the debate may be found in Spanish in Cubadebate (“human dignity as the basis for rights”) and Juventud Rebelde (“confronting myths about sexuality”).
Cuba has become a leader on LGBTI rights in the Latin American and Caribbean contexts:
- Sexual activity between people of the same sex has been legal since 1979.
- The 1975 constitutional definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman was repealed in 2019.
- The Cuban Constitution, amended in 2019, prohibits all discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity and sexual orientation, among others.
- Since 2007, Cubans have marked the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (May 17) with conferences and parades.
- Since June 2008, qualifying Cubans have been able to have free sex reassignment surgeries.
Perhaps the strongest advocate for change is Mariela Castro, head of the National Centre for Sexual Education (CENESEX). She’s also the daughter of Raúl Castro, the former president and head of the armed forces, and of the late Vilma Espín, founder of the Federation of Cuban Women.
In the first decade of the new millennium, Mariela and her staff at CENESEX led efforts to open up space for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. If the approach was once a bit academic, it cracked open space for open LGBTI events and organizing across Cuba.
In 2009, two of my Toronto friends, David Fernández and Jerome Scully, made a film about LGBTI people in Cuba that features an interview with Mariela—and conversations with lots of other energetic people in different parts of Cuba. You can watch ¿Oye qué bolá? Cuban Voices on Sexual Diversity.
In Cuba, some issues become a complex weighing of certain values—construction materials to repair churches, for example, as opposed to the stated priority for schools and hospitals—in the context of the common good. When Mariela spoke to the assembly of the Council of Latin American Churches (CLAI) when it met in Havana in 2013, she referred to that process by recalling her mother’s leadership in the struggle for women’s rights that is sometimes called “the revolution within the revolution.”
“Based on the experience of Cuba,” she said, “we affirm that change can happen with political will and popular participation.” That means taking consultation seriously and that’s why it is taking more than a decade to achieve equal marriage—even while the other side, made up largely of conservative Christians, engages in hateful rhetoric and seems tied to U.S.-based efforts to align fundamentalist Christian religion with right-wing politics.
When the United Church’s then-Moderator Gary Paterson and his husband Tim Stevenson spoke with students and faculty at the seminary in Matanzas, one of the people present was Elaine Saralegui. Elaine, a graduate from the seminary who at the time was working with a local church, had formed a LGBTI group called Somos (“We Are”).
Elaine told me later that the conversation with Gary and Tim spurred the group to further action. They connected with the global network of the Metropolitan Community Church (known in Cuba by its Spanish acronym, ICM), and have congregations now in Matanzas, Havana and Santa Clara.
As we know from experience elsewhere, new laws and political commitments to end discrimination are not always reflected in practice. In Cuba, as elsewhere, there are sometimes issues with how police treat sexual minorities, and race is sometimes a factor. Increasingly though, abuses are reported and dealt with. In 2015, I spent an afternoon in Cárdenas with a gay Afro-Cuban writer, Alberto Abreu Arcía. He maintains a blog, Afromodernidades, where he shares news of actions he takes against racism and homophobia.
Our conversation ranged widely through current events and literature (the excellent books by Reinaldo Arenas, who left Cuba in the Mariel boats in 1980 and died in New York 10 years later) and film (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Fresa y Chocolate, 1991). “These are specific representations of gay life in Cuba that are well-known outside Cuba” but, in Alberto’s view, “do not represent the variety of life in diverse currents, identities and classes.”
While appreciative of the work “at the top” by Mariela Castro and CENESEX, more needs to be done to address the roles of police, the justice system, schools and hospitals—whose personnel and actions have a huge impact on LGBTI people, and also to examine (not just in Cuba) the fault lines within and among the various groups lumped together under the alphabetic LGBTI: gender, race, class, incomprehension by many LGB of the T and the I, as well as to work through cultural reactions against English-language concepts represented by “Q.”
During the most recent events marking the Day against Homophobia, Mariela joined a panel in the presentation of a new book: Paquito el de Cuba: Una década de ciberactivismo, by Francisco Rodríguez Cruz and published by Editorial Caminos of the Martin Luther King Memorial Centre in Havana. The global LGBTI rights group ILGA shared an interview (with subtitles in English) that it did with him in 2018.
In the online book launch, Mariela noted the atmosphere of “low-intensity warfare” that affects Cuba, and that LGBTI themes at times are used to “attack the revolution.” The book pulls together 90 of Paquito’s blog posts where he tries to counter cyber attacks that spread misinformation about LGBTI rights.
In an interview this month with the WCC news service, the president of Cuba’s Student Christian Movement, Jorge González Nuñez, spoke of struggles for social justice in the digital age: “In Cuba, we speak of a ‘Media War’ to refer to the continuous attacks carried out by the United States government against the island. These are actions that in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ use the digital media to censor and misinform. We are facing factories of fake news and trolls, with very sophisticated laboratory technology. Thus we live under constant siege in the digital space.”
Next: some reflections on imperialism.
Unwrapping Development 