Homophobia Is Not Incurable
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA TIMES, May 22 (IPS) – With this past Sunday’s celebration of International Struggle against Homophobia and Transphobia Day, a new campaign was launched in support of sexual diversity, counseling homophobes to be diagnosed and seek treatment for their “dysfunction.”
“Homophobia is an illness, and it has a cure” was the title of the call presented by Colegas (the Spanish Confederation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals), which opposes theories, prejudices and stereotypes that insist on equating all non-heterosexual qualities with dysfunctions, illnesses or abnormalities.
Similarly, a few weeks ago Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) began its campaign titled “Diversity is the Norm,” an effort that will extend throughout this entire year but which had its highpoint on Saturday.
A conga – led by gays, lesbians, transsexuals and people sensitized in the sexual diversity struggle – extended some 200 yards along 23rd Street in the very heart of Havana, and without any interference by the police or anyone else.
“We didn’t organize a gay march, because gays are not the problem; the problem is homophobia,” said CENESEX director Mariela Castro when inaugurating the main event of the nation-wide celebration, which included panels, debates, book presentations, concerts, exhibits and activities in other Cuban provinces.
Added to the activities at the Cuba Pavilion exhibition center, held for the first time last year, was an intense program at the headquarters of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), which involved some of the most important intellectuals in the country in a gesture of clear support of the position taken by CENESEX.
Call for greater government support
However, contrary to last year, when the celebrations had a significant coverage, the Cuban mass media hardly reported the events this time, an omission that was criticized by participants at the Pavilion.
The inadequate work of the press, underhanded discrimination behind administrative decisions that violate the nation’s laws, the absence of opportunities for sharing experiences and police prejudice were only a few of the problems that were raised during the panel discussion on “Sexual Diversity and the Family.”
“The general tone was not one of despair but of dissent, with an understanding of the need and the demand for greater government support,” said Gustavo Alvarado, a research center worker from Matanzas Province. He traveled to the capital to attend the day’s main activity.
While gays, lesbians and transsexuals in Cuba spoke up for their rights in a peaceful and rather festival way, news arrived from Russia about a police crackdown on a gay pride march in which some 25 people were arrested.
Marches, critiques and the presentation of sensitization campaigns also occurred in other countries of Latin America for this annual celebration, which evokes the memory of May 17, 1990, the date when the World Health Organization struck homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.
A crowd also marched on the Honduran seat of government protesting several acts of violence and the death of members of that country’s “lesbian, gay, trans and bisexual community.”
Likewise, the Bolivian press reported that acting Ombudsman Patricia Flores called on the people of that country to “break with religious taboos and cultural prejudices, because people of different sexual orientations and identities have the same rights as anyone else.”
A report by the International Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Trans and Intersexuals disclosed last week that 80 countries have homophobic laws sponsored by their respective governments. In fact, homosexuality is punished by death in Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and areas of Nigeria and Somalia.
Meanwhile, the Joint Program of the United Nations on HIV/AIDS (ONUSIDA), in a statement issued Friday, acknowledged that homophobia impedes the struggle against this pandemic.
Research carried out in Cuba has revealed that zero-positive gays have experienced more discrimination and stigma because of their sexual orientation than for being HIV carriers.
Around 80 percent of Cubans infected with HIV are men, and most of them continue to have sex with other men.
Lesbians demand visibility
Another disclosure was that the demands of lesbians usually go unseen in the broad movement against homophobia and transphobia in most countries of Latin America.
“We did everything ourselves. We printed as many stickers and leaflets as we could,” said Monica Collazo. She is a member of Oremi, a CENESEX forum for reflection among lesbians and female bisexuals, an organized effort that has begun to expand to other Cuban provinces.
Collazo believes that information on lesbians should have the same priority in public campaigns as that of male homosexuality and transexuality, which also receive favored treatment in efforts to sensitize people to populations classified as most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.
“Who knows about the services that CENESEX provides? How do we find out where to go when our rights are violated? How many lesbians in Havana know that there are places for them? When will we have access to assisted fertilization?” asked several women interviewed by IPS.
Assisted (in vitro) fertilization for lesbians is part of a package of proposals promoted by CENESEX and the Federation of Cuban Women. Also included is the reform of the country’s Family Code, which –if approved– will recognize equal rights for heterosexual and homosexual couples.
@ ZT Your intelletual and psychological delusion is impenetrable and evidently quite hopeless.. Homosexual behaviour is fundamentally irrational and categorically deviant in any way, shape or form you choose to consider it, and especially from a biological and evolutionary perspective. The preservation of the species is the one inescapable ontological, moral and scientific imperative of humanity, and of all life forms. It is the most basic and fundamental reality that directly refutes and completely invalidates your outlandish arguments and irrational ideas.
Robert, how is gay marraige not justifiable under evolutionary science? It’s not hurting anyone else, and the historical record shows that homosexuality is natural and has been with us for at least thousands of years. In fact, ancient societies gave homosexuals special roles, and valued them as mediators who could empathize with the tribe’s problems. Evolution says that todays heterosexuals should allow gay marraige, because it means less competition. In fact, going by natural selection, you must either be irrational or supressing your own gay feelings– otherwise, you’d have nothing to fear.
Your moral argument makes no sense, either. Morals arn’t about what’s “natural” or whether something seems “gross.” Even if you thought homosexuality were natural, you’d be commiting the is/ought fallacy– what is is not neccesarily how things ought to be. Since it doesn’t hurt anyone else, it can’t by definition be immoral. Preventing people’s happiness because of your own fears,…
Shua..Today i am in Cuba and to this is say..i will never ever agree to give up my right to disagree i will not cease to dislike and reject gay ANYTHING OR ANYBODY..i do not hate loathe or fear any man who wants to live his life..i simply exercise my right to not have to be pigeonholed and forced to accept how others think they should be looked upon..I will never ever agree that i must go along to get along..This is my position..
exercise of its unfettered rational and moral prerogative and common sense. Societal toleration for homosexuals is in fact a possibility and a reality, but not legal entitlement to gay marriage which is an empirical, logical and evolutionary absurdity contrary to the very nature of sexuality and natural evolution.
The problem of course is not ‘homophobia’, but homosexuality itself and the notion of gay marriage as a valid institution. One might try to fabricate some kind of scapegoat in the form of a right-wing bugbear to try to shift the conversation away from scientific, evolutionary, biological, ethical, moral, legal, social or religious considerations which render homosexuality as an utter aberration, and disingenuously center it on left or right-wing ideology so as try to make it appear to be a mere matter of political expediency or policy, but this is entirely self-delusional. I happen to be a progressive liberal and voted for Obama, but there is not the slightest chance of persuading me or anyone at all by such pretense and false rhetoric and this is your most evident mistake. It is not by government mandate, either in the US or Socialist Cuba or anywhere, that gay marriage will forever be rightfully proven to be a delusional proposition, but by society itself in the natural…
Dalia, as you may know, homophobia is used by the right-wing in the U.S. as part of on-going, anti-socialist, anti-progressive brainwashing of the people. In my home state of California the right-wing has just defeated (for now) the movement for legal gay marriage. It’s a fact that official and unofficial homophobia and persecution of gays in Cuba is “singing in chorus” with the worst elements of the U.S.–the worst enemies of Cuban socialism. If the Cuban government should ever legalize gay marriage, it would be a stunning blow against U.S. hegemony and the blockade.
Is there any movement in Cuba for legal gay marriage?
I am in total disagreement with your premises and arguments, which are patently invalid. Homosexuality as a sexual practive is a biological, sexual and social dysfunction which has no proper legal, scientific or ethical place for inclusion in our evolutionary, biological or cultural social framework. homosexuality is a biological and social anomaly in all respects, rightfully to be rejected and condemned as a sexual practice in society. However, the legal rights of homosexuals as individuals in our social fabric are otherwise rightfully to be protected, but no entitlement for homosexuality as a protected form of sexual practice or behaviour can rightfully be contemplated or exist in society for the evident evolutionary, biological, ethical, religious and social considerations which render it as a dysfunctional and categorically unacceptable phenomenon.
Milagros Garcia Vega Villamil, I believe you may have misread part of the article. They’re saying that homoPHOBIA (the fear, loathing, and hatred of homosexuals) needs to be “cured”, not homoSEXUALITY.
This is great! I am gay and I am mexican, but it is a great joy for me to know about any other country or culture taking a steph further to a respectful and inclusive society. Congratulatios!! Felicidades y que viva la Diversidad!
Many original translations of materials from the Cuban media focusing on LGBT people and their issues on the island can be found at this page:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/lgbt-cuba.html
Links to hundreds of articles about the trials, tribulations and advances of Cuba’s lesbian-gay-bisexual, transsexual and transgendered people can be found on a webpage tracking these developments. Some of the material goes back nearly fifty years.
It includes news articles, documents, excerpts from speeches and writings by Fidel Castro and other Cuban leaders. Many original translations of materials from the Cuban media focusing on LGBT people and their issues on the island…
ie poet Reynaldo Arenas someone whom i was blessed to know and who despaired because he could not force his will on the Cuban Adm mentality.
There is a battle to be fought but the manner by which it is being done is lacking. Get back to the drawing board
am of the belief that if there was suitable self respect and or respect for others that the subject of being a homosexual would not be so OUT THERE?
My thing is move on..live your life and be prepared for consequences of persecution, loss of employment, loss of friendships, loss of family, to say nothing of HIV/AIDS and worse things
What is this about CURE? i am appalled at this suggestion and even that it has been addressed.
Where i am not a lesbian i am someone who believes that others all people should libe thier lives woith respect..