Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

RIGHTS: Neither Strawberry nor Chocolate – Gay Rights in Cuba

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Mar 5 2003 (IPS) - The story of Diego, the gay character in the celebrated Cuban film ”Strawberry and Chocolate” who emigrated so he could live openly and be himself, is not mere fiction in Cuba.

”Strawberry and Chocolate”, which aired 10 years ago and was considered the best Cuban film of the 1990s, told a true-to-life story set in this socialist Caribbean island nation where many people continue to see homosexuality as a defect rather than a sexual option.

The film, directed by Juan Carlos Tabío and the late Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, raised awareness in Cuba by dramatising Diego’s love for a young member of the ruling Communist Party and the friendship that ended up sprouting between them.

”Until the film appeared in 1993, homosexual characters had generally only been used in comedy productions on TV, to make people laugh,” said Aurelio Díaz, a family doctor in Havana.

”Strawberry and Chocolate” marked a watershed in Cuba, according to movie critic Joel del Río.

A survey carried out in late 2002 in several cities in Cuba found a higher level of social acceptance of gays and lesbians than 10 years ago. But the results also pointed to the persistence of prejudice.

IPS had access to the preliminary report on the results of the poll of 300 people, which forms part of an ongoing research project and will be presented at the 16th World Congress on Sexology, scheduled for Mar. 10-14 in Havana.

The results were compared to those of a similar survey conducted in 1993 and 1994 by the research team of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper, the second most widely read in Cuba, and presented in 1994 at the 7th Latin American Congress on Sexology and Sex Education in Havana.

Ten years ago, 68.3 percent of respondents defined homosexuality as a sexual inclination towards people of the same sex rather than as something ”abnormal.” Last year, 78 percent of those surveyed gave that response.

But over half of those interviewed in 2002 said gays and lesbians were ”people with problems,” and 22 percent said they were ”sick” and needed medical help.

The more recent poll indicates that acceptance of gay men has improved with respect to the 1993-1994 period. But the pollsters also found a strong aversion to lesbians, especially among the women respondents, most of whom expressed contemptuous attitudes towards them.

The rejection was especially marked in cities in the interior of Cuba, where a majority of the people interviewed responded that ”I would kill him/her” if they found out that their son or daughter preferred sexual relationships with people of their own sex.

Cuban society, ”still homophobic and patriarchal, offers the homosexual…existential suffering,” wrote psychologist Patricia Arés in an academic paper on homosexuality written at the University of Havana.

Legal reforms eliminated the last vestiges of homophobia from Cuba’s national laws in the late 20th century. But in this socialist island nation there is no debate on the sexual rights – or any other kind of rights – of gays and lesbians.

The London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International reports that the practice of homosexuality is classified as criminal behaviour that can lead to prison time – sometimes years – in more than 70 countries around the world.

Although homosexuals do not face prison sentences or other legal sanctions in Cuba, homosexuality is not accepted. There are no public associations of gays or lesbians, no specialised publications on the question or magazines put out by the homosexual community, and few recognised meeting-points for homosexuals.

There is a total lack of information on the question. Last year, the news that same-sex partnerships would be legally recognised in the Argentine capital was not reported in Cuba, nor has information on efforts towards similar recognition in other parts of the world been published by the Cuban press, which is a state monopoly.

Nevertheless, the situation has improved since the 1960s, when a number of gays were confined and forced to work for a year in the so-called Military Units of Production Support (UMAP).

Selection requirements or ”parameters” were then established in the areas of education and culture, which effectively barred homosexuals, seen as ”bad examples” for the youth of Cuba, from many employment and educational opportunities.

”Being homosexual was enough to ensure that you were not accepted in certain university courses of study or jobs. You weren’t seen as trustworthy,” said Rogelio Jiménez, a 67-year-old Havana resident who is openly gay.

In 1980, when Cuban authorities allowed more than 125,000 people to leave Cuba for the United States in what became known as the Mariel Boatlift, Jiménez was one of the many gays called in by the police because they were considered an ”anti-social blemish,” and invited to permanently leave the country.

”They pressured me so hard, but they couldn’t force me to go,” he told IPS. ”I know many people who left, some because they wanted to and others because they didn’t have the strength to refuse. I just told them that I was queer, but Cuban, and I’m still here.”