Gay Rights : Castro and His LGBTQ Legacy
The death of former Cuban president Fidel Castro has resulted in a mixed reaction from all over the world. Left-leaning political groups lauded the achievements he’s made against US imperialism, while the victims of his regime celebrated his demise.
One thing that may not be given as much focus in the discussion of Castro’s legacy is his treatment of Cuba’s LGBTQ community over the three decades he was in power as Cuban president. Much like everything else about Castro, whether his record was good or bad depends on who you ask.
His daughter, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, escaped Cuba in 1993 and wrote the book Castro’s Daughter: An Exile’s Memoir of Cuba in 1998. In it, she detailed what life was like in Castro’s inner circle. She has no love for Castro, and in an interview with Hour, she revealed Castro had no love for the LGBTQ as well, at least during the beginning of the revolution.
Fernandez, for instance, said that “many writers and artists were accused of being homosexuals” and sent to the UMAP (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción) camps. During the three years which they operated (1965-1968), the 35,000 internees of the UMAP camps saw 72 deaths from torture, 180 suicides, and 507 ending up in psychiatric wards.
Of course, this is a complete 180 from how surprisingly progressive Cuba now is when it comes to LGBTQ concerns. A trans woman was elected into office in Cuba in 2013, and Mariela Castro’s CENSEX (Cuban National Center for Sex Education) has lobbied for healthcare for transsexuals in Cuba and for the public health office to offer free sexual reassignment surgery. Mariela has also advocated for same-sex unions in Cuba. Mariela has even been awarded by the Equality Forum, an LGBT think-tank based in Philadelphia.
However, when faced with Alina’s assertion of gay men being sent to the UMAP camps, Mariela claimed that it was not a concerted effort to target Cuba’s gay community. She said to the Daily Extra that homosexuality was not discussed at the time, and that gay people were just part of a wide group of people arrested during a statewide crackdown.
“But after three years, we stopped arresting homosexuals because of the homophobic attitudes and reactions [of other prisoners] in the units,” she said.
What do you guys know of the situation of the LGBTQ community in Cuba? If you’re a gay Cuban, how do you feel about Castro’s passing? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
“Left-leaning political groups lauded the achievements he’s made against US imperialism”
Yet they over look his killing, torturing and repression of his own people. Interesting. And we wonder why Trump won.
I have mixed feeling about Fidel….The American corporations where stealing the country blind, extremely low, wages with no hope of a better life for the people, while the corporation were taking sugar cane and farm products, and other natural resources, giving nothing in return. With the support of United States, of the brutal Cuba Government of President Bautista, this gave little hope for the Cuban people, and they continues into more and more poverty and despair.
After is revolutionary victory, and beginning of the revolution government Fidel lead, he did reach out to United States, receiving empty hands from us.
But our country’s cold, unhelping hands, forced the Cuban government to reach out to the communist nations, for money and purchasing the resources of Cuba, to help the Cuban economy.
Fidel did do some bad things, imprisonment, torture, and executions, to keep his government in power.
But the good, Cuba has the highest literature rates, in all of the Latin Americas, and in some case better then some states in the US. They Surpassed United States in medical treatment and research, and have given free medical care for all of its citizens.
The United States government is the true, cause of the Cuban revolution, supporting the American Corporations, in their gaining of wealth, supporting a brutal government of Bautista, who far surpassed the brutality of what Fidel did, forced the people of Cuba to the possibility of hope with Fidel’s revolution.
Be wary,
The American Corporation are still dictating to our government, under the disguise of “National Interest”, thousand of our young men and women, some from our LGBT community, have been sent to their deaths and many more wounded, some never will gain their lives’ back.
National Interest, should be used in the protection of our nation, not to allow gas to be sold for a dollar cheaper or even for 4 dollars cheaper. Lets be honest, Corporations are sending our kids to die, so American Corporation can continue to gain wealth…
Fidel is not so bad compared to what our own citizens are doing solely to be richer
Such an informed and comprehensive point of view about Castro and Cuba – US relations. Glad to see it here. Thanks.
TY…. What are you taking about? trump won because there are more haters with limited education than thought. Too dim to see the con!
I agree with TY. I’m from Cuba and went back in 2001 for a family visit. I decided to go out with the gay owner of a private home we were renting rooms from. He had quit his job as a Professor of Dentistry at the University of Havana because running a B&B paid more. No lie. And e en though his father was a high ranking military official, all he told me about was dreaming of getting to the USA. Long story short, he decided to show me gay life in Havana. It consisted of hanging around the Hotel Nacional until the location of the underground gay bar was known for that night. We went by taxi to a rum factory, where the manager ‘loaned’ it out that night to make money ‘under the table’. Apparently he didn’t ‘spread the wealth’ and he was ratted out. As we arrived, the cops had beaten us by about 5 minutes. Gays poured out of the factory screaming at us to turn around. Some were bleeding from their heads and faces. They told us ‘cops are busting maricon head’ in there. That was Cuba up until 2001. I’ve never desired to return.
This is ANOTHER reason why so many Cubans have died coming in boats to America for FREEDOM.
Right wing ideologies are thousand fold worse
Consumerist Capitalist imperialist movements leave incalculable death and destruction in their wake
Liberals are sickening for praising this lunatic. I’m openly gay, happy and I’m also VERY proud I voted for president elect Donald Trump. He’s far from homophobic and will do nothing to hurt the LGBT community. I’ve never seen more delusion from the left in my life. Democrats aren’t democrats anymore they’re confused socialists with narrow minds. Trump praised the death of Castro in hopes for freedom in Cuba. Cuban Americans rejoiced in Miami while Obama paid condolences to the Castro family. Two more months and Obama will finally be out of office. Thanks for winning the gay marriage fight. That’s the only thing I can thank him for. The left won’t call out radical Islam who is murdering LGBT citizens daily. Enough is enough it’s time for change to protect ALL Americans!
The left is its own worst enemy. Sensible, sane people don’t excuse a murdering despot because he suddenly was nice to gays. It almost makes me wonder if the left would love to pull a Castro and round up their political enemies and torture and kill them. Actually, I don’t wonder. I know that’s what they would love. Castro was a monster who enslaved his people. Good riddance to a horrible man.
He’s DEAD good!!!
I was wondering how quick would this subject about Castro and the Gay community come up! Castro it had been said was a known homophobic.
Get your facts Straight, to begin with it was 60 years or six decades that he degraded human beings and the left supported him just as they supported Hitler when he began and good old Stalin always.
“We would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct that would enable us to consider him a true revolutionary, a true communist militant,” Castro told an interviewer in 1965. “A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant communist should be.”
“Though the Cuban regime closed down the UMAPs in the late 1960s, it continued to repress gay men as ideologically subversive elements. Openly homosexual people were prevented from joining the Communist Party and fired from their jobs. One of the country’s most distinguished writers, Reinaldo Arenas, recounted the prison experience he and countless other gay men endured in his memoir Before Night Falls. “It was a sweltering place without a bathroom,” he wrote. “Gays were not treated like human beings, they were treated like beasts. They were the last ones to come out for meals, so we saw them walk by, and the most insignificant incident was an excuse to beat them mercilessly.”
If one reads any history at all this creature was horrible for everyone .
Viva Rigor Mortis!