LavenderRed_Cubabook

Cuba: ‘Bringing revolution’s
humanity to all aspects of life’
“I want to bring the revolution’s humanity to those aspects of life that it hasn’t
reached because of old prejudices,” Mariela Castro Espín, who has worked hard
to eradicate pre-revolutionary prejudices about same-sex love, transsexuality and
gender variance in Cuba, said in summer 2006. (Israel)
Castro Espín is director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX),
which has accomplished a great deal in a relatively short time to replace prejudices about
same-sex love and transsexuality with positive attitudes.
CENESEX created its own Internet web site—www.cenesex.sld.cu—shortly after
the 16th World Congress of Sexology met in Havana in March 2003.
CENESEX’s site incorporates a section on sexual diversity, which offers in Spanish
and English basic information, opportunities to consult with experts, and voicing of
public opinion.
The site gets right to the point about its objective, which it states is to “overcome the
taboos and prejudices that persist about same-sex love: Being homosexual or bisexual is
not a disease, it is not synonymous with perversity, nor does it constitute a crime.”
Homosexuality, the web site makes clear, “is a sexual orientation that is not caused by
seduction at any age, it is not contagious, and is not acquired by educational defects or
negative examples in the family environment.”
This Internet site receives the most visits—150,000 “hits” a day—of any Cuban World
Wide Web portal. (IPS/GIN, July 3, 2004)
Castro Espín said in the summer of 2004 that these developments are “the result of an
effort of more than 30 years, and now we are seeing its fruits more clearly.” (Acosta)
Work accomplished, work to do
When asked by a BBC reporter in September 2006 whether perceptions about homosexuality
had changed in Cuban society, Mariela Castro Espín answered, “I think so;
it has changed very much.” (González)
She told interviewer Eduardo García Jiménez, “I do believe that since the 1990s there
is greater acceptance of the presence of homosexuals by some portion of the population
and public institutions. That does not mean that the contradiction has been resolved for
all individuals at all levels of society.
Cuba: ‘Bringing revolution’s humanity to all aspects of life’ 89