LavenderRed_Cubabook

U.S. imperialism militarily occupied Cuba for four years, beginning
in 1898. From 1902 until the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Wall
Street ruled by establishing dictatorships to squeeze the island’s
economy in its fist, restructuring Cuba for exploitation as a giant
sugar plantation.
Laws against same-sex love and gender variance and brutal state
enforcement continued to be used as a cudgel for economic, social
and political control.
Cross-dressing Puerto Rican labor organizer Luisa Capetillo
was arrested in Havana in July 1915 for wearing men’s clothing.
Capetillo was a single mother, a revolutionary, and a much-loved
and respected labor organizer.
After supporting the 1905 farm workers’ strike in the northern
region of Puerto Rico, she became a reader in a tobacco plant,
an industry whose workers were among the most politically conscious.
She also spoke in public about the needs of working women,
including the right to sex education. She strongly believed that
sexuality was not the business of the church or the state.
As a full-time labor organizer after 1912, Capetillo traveled
Revolutionary extensively, particularly to Havana, Tampa and New York because
Puerto Rican trade
unionist Luisa they were hubs of the tobacco workers’ movement.
Capetillo on the In Cuba, Capetillo actively supported a sugar cane workers’
day of her arrest in strike organized by the Anarchist Federation of Cuba.
Havana on crossdressing
charges.
The Cuban government tried unsuccessfully to deport her as
an agitator.
Then it focused on her wearing of a “man’s” suit, tie and fedora in
public to charge her with “causing a scandal.”
Capetillo fought the charge, arguing in court that no law prevented her from wearing
men’s garb, that such clothing was appropriate for the changing role of women in society,
and that she had worn similar clothing in the streets of Puerto Rico and Mexico without
state intervention.
Capetillo won her court battle—the judge ordered the charges dropped. News of her
victory spread in articles in all the major newspapers in Cuba and Puerto Rico.
Historian Aurora Levins Morales concluded, “The incident received massive press
coverage, and Capetillo used it as an opportunity to attack conventional morality, with its
rigid sex roles, and women’s imprisonment within it.” (Morales)
In 1938, under U.S. domination, the Cuban Penal Code—the “Public Ostentation
Law”—was enacted. This law mandated state penalties for “habitual homosexual acts,”
public displays of same-sex affection and/or gender-variant dress and self-expression.
Courtesy of Yamila Azize-Vargas, Puerto Rican feminist writer. The photo is from her personal collection.
8 Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba