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LGBT Cubans feel represented by this government institution.
The inclusion of CENESEX in official, required,
ideological and political acts is not of much interest to most folks (for example, a celebration when
three spies of the Avispa Network who were still
imprisoned in the U.S. were released), and is rejected by members of the Cuban LGBT community and most of the general population.
Not officially acknowledged civil society
Our not officially acknowledged civil society has
not managed to offer an attractive alternative for
a significant number of homosexuals. Several independent groups have attempted to represent the
LGBT community, but they have not been able to
make their ideas and actions very visible. In reality, they’ve attracted more attention from people
abroad. Their major weakness may be to have
tried to establish themselves as organizations at a
national level rather than accepting a need to act
locally to have greater impact.
There are informal groups in many towns on the
island and in many of the capital’s municipalities.
They engage in cultural activities, parties and
other kinds of events with members of the LGBT
community. They don’t encounter resistance
from the authorities in most cases.
For the immediate future, it seems that the LGBT
community should understand that some of its
members should moderate any public manifestations of their homosexuality; they should not be
vulgar or indecent, because this would not sit well
with many people. In addition, vulgarity or indecency has nothing to do with their sexual preferences. Similarly, extreme manifestations of machismo are also not generally accepted.
As with any group with shared interests, any progress in the dismantling of the totalitarian system
must go hand in hand with growing action by an
independent civil society, to fill the voids left or
spaces abandoned by officialdom in its metamorphosis from a Benefactor State to a Savage Capitalist State.
The future has many challenges to being able to
overcome superfluous, and increasingly senseless

divisions between real and not so real revolutionaries. They have been the two poles of a contradiction that was fabricated and imposed on the
core of our national life. While not essential, it is
a contradiction that has generated absolutely no
good in Cuba’s existence as a nation for over fifty
years.
Groups that are disadvantaged due to racial prejudices or sexual preferences, particularly, and
face the aforementioned challenges as well,
should already be including and developing affirmative actions in the mid- and long-term strategies for inclusion as equals in a very necessary
diverse national unity. It must guarantee equality
of opportunities for all citizens in their development as individuals and their pursuit of happiness,
such as each and everyone one of them defines it.
The only limitation should be that this activity
should not stop someone else from seeking out
the very same thing.
Many who are close to the issue sense that the
changes that are truly necessary in Cuba force one
to think about those who were left behind, those
who died with the hope of seeing and maybe even
enjoying a better place to live on our island or
other lands, fleeing from the nightmare the Castro’s totalitarian dynasty has forced latter generations to endure.
How many Cubans who disappeared or died in an
attempt to illegally leave the country may have
had persecution, marginality and even physical
and psychological abuse on account of their sexual preferences as their sincerest reason for fleeing? How many of those who have died while in
custody were members of the gay community?
How many of their deaths are related to abuse, neglect and even murder on account of their difference?
We will never know the exact number nor will it
be possible to create lists to distinguish them in
any way. Yet, that should not keep us from deciding to remember them now as enduring symbols
that will prevent our forgetting the injustice of
having ignored or marginalized them.

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