Gay Cuba

AFP: Google News
Raul Castro's daughter spearheads anti-homophobia drive

HAVANA (AFP) — President Raul Castro's daughter, Mariela, is organizing Cuba's second anti-homophobia festival this week to boost public awareness of the country's long-marginalized gay community, this time with the approval of her dad's government.
"There's political support for this educational strategy. It's the best thing that's happened to us," Mariela Castro said about the backing the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) she heads is receiving from Cuba's Communist Party.
She said Raul Castro, 76, "is helping us a lot ... not only because I'm his daughter, but because I've earned his respect by working at my job carefully."
A teacher and mother of three children, Mariela Castro, 46, took over from her late mother, Vilma Espin, in running Cuban Womens' Federation (FMC) after she died in 2007, and has headed CENESEX for the past 14 years.
Her uncle Fidel Castro, 81, relinquished presidential power to his brother Raul, 76, in February citing health reasons.
For as long as Cuba's communist revolution began nearly 50 years ago, Mariela and her mother have been busy trying to whittle away at the country's machismo tradition.
The week-long festival in Havana and six of Cuba's 14 provinces, aims to increase public awareness about gay rights through television programs, movies, theater, debates and book fairs, culminating with the International Day Against Homophobia, on May 17.
Besides the educational efforts, Mariela's group is also busy reforming Cuba's Family Code and has proposed in parliament a bill on freedom of gender -- the right to choose one's gender, and the right to "legal union" for gays.
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PHOTO ESSAY: Cuba from dusk to dawn

"El Malecon" in Havana is an 8 km stretch of cement seawall spanning from one side of the city to the other. Many people say that it's both a help and a hindrance; it protects the city and its inhabitants from weather, but prevents them from leaving the area.

Regardless, it is the heart and soul of Havana. There is no other place in the city where you will find, at any given moment, a more diverse group of Cubans and foreigners in the same place. During the day, you are almost guaranteed to come upon fisherman, young couples (foreign and local) and a musician or two, often in the same area.

It is at night, however, when the true character of the Malecon comes out. Fueled by the ridiculously cheap, yet incredible rum, the music gets louder, the romantic petting gets less secret and a whole different group of Cubans come out of the woodworks.

This group is comprised of homosexuals and transsexuals that descend upon a three-block stretch of the Malecon, ironically very near to what many consider to be the best hotel in the city, the Hotel Nacional. They come to hang out, find out where the parties are and hook up.

The police are present, but for the most part, the government ignores the happenings. For many of the people who show up to this section of the Malecon, it is their only chance to fully express themselves during the week.