Identidades in English No 3, September 2014 | Page 32

Luis Manuel contracted AIDS in 1994 and confesses that what he wants to do with his prevention work is “help young people because I don’t
want them to go through what I’m going through
now. I want to help, I want to support all the municipality’s young people but it is not possible for
me to do what I’d like, even if it is in keeping the
CENESEX’s declared objectives.”
When asked about the CENESEX’s work, Luis
Manuel answered that he had no opinion about it,
since they had not come to San Antonio de los
Baños:
“They need to see that not everything is rose colored, that they see the discrimination there is with
people who are sick with HIV/AIDS en San Antonio. No one has seen me since 1999, nor have
they checked into the conditions in which we live.
A lot of us feel that we are not adequately cared
for.”
Christian churches that accept totalitarian control
also reject homosexuals based on their interpretation of the Bible. They are also not accepted as
members in legally authorized fraternal organizations.
CENESEX: rhetorical pretensions and real impact
A national group that worked with this issue since
the 1960s defined itself as the National Center for
Sexual Education (CENESEX) in 1989. According to the ‘official’ Cuban Encyclopedia on the
Web (ECURED), CENESEX’s mission is “to
process the application of Cuban sex education
policy to the coordination of the participation of
entities and organizations in charge of social
communication, community work, education, orientation and sex therapy. All this to contribute to
human beings being able to live their sexuality in
a healthy, full, satisfying and responsible way.” It
excludes any actions by independent agents, individuals or group that do not first submit to its control.
Despite the fact the CENESEX’s work is fully
disseminated on the media using triumphant rhetoric sprinkled with praise, the high and increasing
number of people infected with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, as well as teen

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and unwanted pregnancies that end in abortion
are some of the indicators that show the truly poor
social impact of this center. Luis Manuel Leal
confirms that there were fewer than 45 cases of
patients with HIV/AIDS in 2009 in San Antonio
de los Baños. In 2013, there were up to 99. This
is related to the lack of real and effective prevention work on the part of health promoters and all
institutions. All they do is give out condoms once
a year and place visual messages in schools and
health centers that hardly anyone looks at or pays
attention to.
Even the Head of the Infant Maternal Program
(PAMI), Roberto Álvarez Fumero, assured in his
presentation at the Health and Sports Commission
during the Cuban assembly’s last session that
“nearly 40 out of 100 women who become pregnant in Cuba terminate their pregnancies.” At that
same Commission, Dr. Roberto Morales Ojeda,
the Minister of Public Health, stated that there
should be “increased work in the promotion of a
sexual and reproductive culture that is more responsible at early ages.”
Both official declarations point to the lack of effectiveness of the CENESEX’s actions, although
ECURED states “it has extended its notion of
group work to the community. For this purpose,
it takes advantage of the many spaces of influence
there are in the country, so it can reach families,
couples, young people, and citizens, in general,
with an educational message about sexuality.”
Regarding the CENESEX, what most everyday
people take note of are the sex change operations,
which are done with donations from f