Raúl Castro’s Kid Talks Cuban Queerdom
I’ve been bopping down to this awesome, unlucky island for years, and despite everything Cuba is a fun and fab destination — I’ll be reporting back to you from there this spring when I go back after a four-year hiatus (I last blogged about it here this past February). But in the meantime, I thought you might be interested to hear what the very — even insistently — gay-friendly daughter of the country’s latest dictator has to say in an interview I caught a week ago with the lefty, New York-based Monthly Review (click on YouTube video above). Mariela Castro Espín is the directora of the National Center for Sex Education, and of course has to spout a good dose of that obligatory and irritating “socialism-or-death” and “we’ll-all-be-so-weepy-when-Fidel-finally-croaks” bullshit. But what I found most interesting was the tidbits she threw out re the chances for same-sex marriage being legalized on an island that less than 40 years ago was throwing fags and dykes in UMAP concentration camps (yo, Miss Commie Thing, that was your unky-poo’s doing, not big bad Batista’s!). Now that’d really be revolutionary!
It’s true that since the 1990’s (anybody remember the groundbreaking ’94 flick Fresa y Chocolate, aka Strawberry and Chocolate?) attitudes down here have loosened up quite a bit with regard to butt piracy. And in my more than one dozen visits I saw gays – including several fairly outrageous drag queens — gathering openly in Havana’s Vedado section and on the malecón (seafront boulevard). Havana even saw its first Gay Pride bash this past June.
On the other hand, the nightlife still sports an on-the-down-low, demi-mondish vibe. Permanent gay clubs don’t exist; instead, parties rotate between venues both established (like La Concha, a former country club) to improvised (someone’s apartment, say, or even a dusty clearing in a banana field on the city’s outskirts). You can definitely have a good time, but you don’t want to leave your discretion at home.
I’m really hoping the Obama-Biden gang will finally do the right and sensible and Constitutional thing and open up travel to Cuba again for all U.S. citizens (not just Cuban-Americans), both so we can all see what’s going on and do what we can for the long-suffering folks down there. It’s about time.
Yours truly,
Dave