------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 12, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- "GAY CUBA": REVOLUTION WITHIN THE REVOLUTION This is from a talk by poet Minnie Bruce Pratt introducing the film "Gay Cuba." Pratt was a guest speaker at a Workers World Forum in New York on June 29. The Stonewall Rebellion in New York City over 30 years ago marked the beginning of the modern lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) movements in the U.S. We are celebrating Stonewall with a showing of "Gay Cuba," a film in which LGBT Cubans and others tell us what it has meant to live in a country where rebellion against oppression grew into a socialist revolution. This film will fill you with tremendous hope about what can happen in human lives and relationships with the overturn of capitalism. Though "Gay Cuba" contains accounts of pride at the accomplishments of the revolution, it also contains the voices of LGBT people who experienced discrimination and persecution in the earlier days of this country still young in socialism. How can the disclosure of these painful facts be a source of hope? Because the very existence of this movie, a 1995 project of the Felix Varela Center of Cuba, directed by Sonja de Vries, shows the commitment of Cuba to "a revolution within the revolution." This expression was originally used by Fidel Castro in reference to the participation of women in the Cuban Revolution. The making and release of "Gay Cuba" is one of many signs that Cuba is also increasingly committed to a "revolution within the revolution" for LGBT people. This commitment is the result of an extended and profound process, an example of another of Fidel's goals for the revolution--that it "must be a school of unfettered thought." For example: After internal debate and struggle, in 1975 the Cuban Supreme Court overturned a resolution of the Council of Culture/ Ministry of Culture that had been used to limit employment of gay people in the arts and education. In 1979, the new Cuban penal code decriminalized homosexuality--an action, we all know, that has not happened on a national level in the U.S. Especially significant to trans people is that an earlier Cuban ordinance prohibited discrimination on the basis of appearance, which could include what someone wears. This kind of legal protection for trans people is also not available in the U.S. on a national basis. FIDEL: CUBAN LEADERS NOW 'WISER AND MORE INTELLIGENT' In 1981, a book that became a bestseller in Cuba because of its direct treatment of human sexuality included the stance that homosexuality "is not a sickness, but a variant of human sexuality." In 1988, in a televised interview in Spain, Fidel noted that certain rigidity" had previously governed attitudes towards homosexuality. He pointed out that the process of making a new world took time: "Our society, our party, our government [now] have ideas that are clearer, wiser and more intelligent about many of these problems." In 1992, Vilma Espín, president of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and a senior leader of the Communist Party, challenged a psychologist who presented prejudiced views on homosexuality at the Congress of the Union of Young Communists. According to Sonja de Vries, the director of "Gay Cuba," Espín stated that such prejudicial ideas, not the sexual orientations of gays, were what needed to be changed. De Vries saw Espín's statement as a "significant representation of the changed idea of the Cuban leadership." The film "Gay Cuba" also answers the recently released film "Before Night Falls." This movie, which distorts, omits and outright lies about the lives of gay men in Cuba, has been acclaimed by Hollywood and by the mainstream media for its vicious attacks on the Cuban Revolution. "Before Night Falls" reinforces the misinformation that is rampant in our LGBT communities about what it means to live as a queer person in Cuba. Why target the LGBT community with anti-Cuba messages? Why assume that we are particularly interested in Cuba? Well, in addition to early ties within the U.S. gay liberation movement to freedom struggles worldwide and to socialism-- including ties through Workers World Party-- the fact is that many LGBT people are poor and working people. This is contrary to mainstream media trumpeting that the majority of gays are affluent DINKS (dual income, no kids). It's not surprising that we would be interested in Cuba since--as author and WWP member Bob McCubbin has said--that country has "freed itself from the madness of capitalism." Certainly we would be interested in a country and a political system that offered us the hope of freedom from economic oppression and freedom from oppression against our sexuality. It is significant that we are viewing "Gay Cuba" near the anniversary of Elian Gonzalez's return home. When I came out as a lesbian, I lost custody of my two young sons, who were just about Elian's age when this happened. My children were taken away from me because I asserted that I was a lesbian, that I alone was to determine the consequences of my sexuality. With this assertion I challenged a system that assumes that the bodies of women and children are to be controlled within a system of profit. What I would have given 25 years ago--what I would give now!- -to live as a lesbian with my children in a land where neither women nor children were considered property. Such a land is the one that Elian was returned to. Cuba has given us the honest and hopeful film we are about to see now, another example of the continuing "revolution within the revolution." - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
