http://www.clarin.com/diario/2007/11/04/elmundo/i-03201.htm

04.11.2007

"Of course I envision a woman governing Cuba some day"

An exclusive interview with Mariela Castro Espín, director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX).

By: Hinde Pomeraniec

She arrived in Buenos Aires to talk about what she knows best. The daughter of Raúl Castro, currently Cuba’s strongman, and Vilma Espín, a former guerrilla who for years headed the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), Mariela Castro Espín (1963, married, three children) is the director of her country’s National Center for Sex Education. To many people’s surprise, she’s also the spirit behind a bill to make sex-change operations legal and modifying identity documents for Cuban transsexuals possible. Castro Espín welcomed Clarín in the Communist Party’s headquarters at Entre Ríos Street, a picture of Che Guevara hanging on the wall above her.

Q: Where does your interest in these topics come from?

“I got involved in sexuality while I was working for the Pedagogical University. At the time I was the youngest professor, so when research teams were established all the others got the most high-sounding topics and they asked me to take this one. I started with sex education for children and then for teenagers. I had always felt curious about how the issue of homosexuality was approached in Cuba, and knowing it mad me feel unhappy; I was very uncomfortable about homophobia and certain attitudes, even at institutional level, towards homosexuals. I thought it was awful to see that neither the Communist Party nor the Young Communist League would accept them as members. I was in total disagreement and always voiced my opposition in the relevant places, first as a student and later as a professor.”

Q: Did you have gay friends?

“No particular or close friends, but I always listened to those who told me their stories or the things that happened in the 1960s or 70s. I used to ask people because I wanted to be sure about what it was like, even to those who knew from their own experience. However, there was no resentment in their tales, as if they understood why it happened.

Q: Are you talking about the work camps where they were sent?

“Those were not camps, but military units in support of production set up as a military service of sorts to make it easier for the children of workers and peasants to get a qualification and thus better paid jobs.  That’s what the new Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces had set out to do. Those days were marked by a prevailing state of unrest: there was a revolutionary nation in the making, and the Cuban people were the victims of attacks prompted by a State terrorism aimed at making everything very difficult for them. That’s when this idea came up. In some of those units the homosexuals suffered humiliation, inflicted by those who thought they had to be ‘changed’ and therefore put to work so they could become ‘men’. Such was the fashionable mindset in Cuba and elsewhere. Even the psychiatrists had therapy sessions conceived to make heterosexuals out of them.”

Q: Were lesbians discriminated against too?

“Gay men took most of the humiliation because women tend to be more careful and keep a lower profile than men. However, no one went missing or submitted to torture; contrary to those who are always trying to distort Cuba’s realities, never has any hate crime based on sexuality been committed in Cuba. But it’s true that the whole thing was in violation of these people’s rights.”

Q: You were saying that you suddenly took an interest in the issue of sexual diversity...

“Though my work was not directly related to it, I somehow managed to broach the subject of homophobia in my sex education courses, either on radio and TV programs or even in one or two interviews published in the newspaper Granma in 1990. Before that, in the 1970s and 80s, my mother[1] had brought it up in the Federation of Cuban Women, who always took a stand against homophobic attitudes even inside the Party, but with little or no success, considering their expectations. Nevertheless, they smoothed the way for us, and thanks to those first steps we can now do what we do.”

Q: When did you first take concrete steps regarding the sexual diversity policy?

“In 2004, when a group of more than 40 transvestites and transsexuals in Havana came to see me at CENESEX to complain about their problems with the police in the downtown area around La Rampa Street, their usual hangout then –and since. The police were arresting them on a whim and then releasing them with no charges, because the population usually protested against that practice.”

Q: Did they engage in prostitution?

“Some did, but not all of them. The police would take them away to silence the protests, but in fact there were other kinds of individuals there. In addition to transvestites and transsexuals, there were some people who were robbing and harassing the tourists. They had to curb those incidents, but not the way they did it, putting these transvestites and transsexuals on a level with the local scum. We thought it was the wrong treatment, requested to meet with the police and agreed to stop the isolated efforts in favor of a nationwide strategy to provide health, social, educational and employment services to transvestites and transsexuals. From it stemmed the guidelines for a Law on Gender Identity and amendments to our Family Code approved in 1975.”

Q: Did you have in mind the possibility of providing for gay marriages?

“By 1975 we had already set our sights on something along those lines. My mom in particular used to talk about marriage as the ‘union of two persons’. Yet, it went no further than that, since people voted against the proposal when it was submitted to a popular vote.”

Q: Why do you think it happened? Was it because of Catholic traditions, because of machismo?

“It was both machismo and the hegemonic heterosexuality that prevails in our cultures, and also because these issues were not the object of public discussion as they are today, so the process was slower. Our Family Code could only go as far as the Cuban people’s analytical capability at the time allowed it to go. All along the 1970s, 80s and 90s we worked nonstop with the FMC and other institutions who had joined the sex education program until new amendments were made. Now we are drafting another article related to people’s right to a free sexual orientation and gender identity which includes same-sex ‘legal unions’. Talking about marriage would entail changes to the Constitution. This provision will protect the same patrimonial and personal rights of a legal marriage, including adoption, which is precisely what most people are reluctant to accept. The same thing happens in Europe, though.”

Q: You mentioned the 1980s. What did the appearance of AIDS in Cuba mean?

“Actually, it was Fidel who had the broadest and clearest views about AIDS, since he kept up to date with what was going on in the world. So back in ’85 or ’86 he asked the staff at the Tropical Medicine Institute whether they had thought about what they would do about AIDS, for he believed –he told them– that it would grow to become the epidemic of the century. ‘Have you thought about what to do to keep it out of Cuba or prevent its progress?,’ and they answered, ‘No, we haven’t, but if you tell us what to do…’ So they went to France, got in touch with Luc Montagnier and learned all about the latest developments. A series of tests began, mainly with comrades returning home from assignments in Africa, and it was precisely among them where the first cases were detected.” 

Q: Are there [antiretroviral ‘drug] cocktails’ in Cuba?

“Yes. Fidel’s question triggered the Cuban Strategy for AIDS Control and Prevention. That’s the kind of name he likes (laughter), and right after that a whole government team was established to be directly supervised by our Commander together with the Ministry of Public Health, which makes it possible to make very quick decisions, mainly of budgetary nature. AIDS-related healthcare is very expensive, and the Cuban State covers all expenses. Fidel said the United Nations may take care of prevention expenses, but medical attention is every State’s responsibility.”

Q: What’s the male-female proportion among AIDS patients?

“Males account for 80% of the cases, and of them 85% are men who have sex with other men, often in connection with prostitution.”

Q: Are condoms available?

“Free of charge; it’s a state subsidy. And they are for sale in drugstores at hardly half the price the State pays for them in Europe or Japan, since the U.S. blockade keeps us from buying condoms there, or anything else for that matter.”

Q: I read in an article that you wrote part of a soap opera script….

“That idea came from our TV authorities who decided to make a soap opera called ‘The hidden face of the moon’, divided into several stories that included one about a married man who finds himself attracted to a homosexual. It was the first time such things were seen in Cuban TV, and it caused a huge stir, even if our approach was rather moderate. There was some stereotyping too, but what matters is that it paved the way for social debate. TV dramas are a great favorite with everybody, be they marginals, newspaper readers, smart or dumb people.”

Q: Who promote change the most in Cuba, men or women?

“Cuban women have changed a lot. As early as in his revolutionary program History Will Absolve Me, Fidel referred to the awful situation of exploitation Cuban women suffered. A very high percent of women in Cuba had no choice but to become prostitutes. They would go to Havana looking for jobs as servants and ended up as working girls. So one of the Revolution’s first measures was to give these women medical attention, teach them to read and write, qualify them for better jobs… Their life changed, and they were recognized as victims instead of criminals, unlike their pimps, who do violate the law that forbids exploitation of a human being by another human being.”

Q: Prostitution made a comeback with the arrival of tourism…

“We had already got rid of that, but then tourists began to come and our people were deeply hurt when women turned to prostitution all over again after the Revolution had given them back their dignity. That they resorted to prostitution was deemed unworthy of these capable, skilled women to whom Cuban law guarantees employment by any means, our hardships notwithstanding. We were, and still are, so sorry that it happened. Cuban women have benefited from the most significant changes at subjective level and hence our men in turn have changed. Not that they have a choice: their women got jobs and things at home changed as a result, for they have been forced to take on housework.”

Q: What about gays in the military?

“I always say where there’s humanity there’s diversity, and the military is not the exception. They have gays too, who of course try to keep it in the closet, conscious that their presence in such milieu is rejected. The proper conditions to make any changes are yet to exist. Well, my dad, the Minister of the Armed Forces, tells me: ‘Look, I think that as people change so will the Army. So go on with your work, raise awareness, do things, change Cuban society and thus you will change all the rest, including our institutions...’." 

Q: What was it like to grow as a woman in a family with so many important men?

“Fighting like crazy, quarreling and making demands all the time, and we all keep up the fight, otherwise they will make mincemeat of us, as you can imagine. Women are now showing their worth in every patriarchal society, lest they be trampled on.”

Q: Can you envision a future government headed by a woman?

“Yes, of course. Many Cuban women have leadership qualities; there are female ministers, deputy ministers and directors of institutions.”

Q: Are people in Cuba ready to be governed by a woman?

“Yes, they are.”

Q: Would it have been possible 10 years ago?

“I never thought about it 10 years ago. But in the last few years there have been policies to promote women issues. Right now we are doing research on voluntary childlessness. Like in Italy, Cuban women give birth once, twice at most, and have no intention whatsoever of being slaves to their household and children. They have made great strides in their studies and gained in self-sufficiency, but only if and when your standards of living improve will you risk having many children. One thing is certain: women will no longer be bound to their homes. It’s getting more and more common to find them in managerial and decision-making positions. Many women, including some very young ones, won Parliament seats in our last election.”

Q: Do you get to travel much to exchange views with colleagues in other countries?

“Quite a few times, but if I don’t go, my colleagues do it in my stead.”

Q: Do you ever go to the United States?

“We never get a visa. I was there once, and I was invited to go on two occasions after that, but they never replied to my applications for a visa, and there’s no reason for me to beg anything of the Americans. In the end, the U.S. professionals come whenever they want through a third country, and we have excellent relations and contacts by e-mail.”

Q: Tell us about the bill on sexual diversity.

“We submitted it to the CP, and they put us in touch with the relevant State bodies. I don’t know when it will be approved; many big issues are under discussion in Cuba as we speak that I guess have taken precedence. It will be approved, that much we’ve been told. The Party has asked us to raise public awareness and work with the media to that end so that everyone is familiar with this subject when the bill is passed.”

Q: How many people are waiting for gender reassignment surgery?

“There are 27 transsexuals waiting, and as soon as the medical team is ready –they are being trained now– they will proceed. We already have a resolution by the Ministry of Public Health to implement integral medical attention procedures, and even a special unit for transgenders has been approved.”

Q: Is there any country where the treatment of sexual diversity sounds ideal to you?

“Ideals are always a wonderful thing; practice is what comes as the hard part. Today in Cuba we are discussing the socialism we want, how to make it more to our liking, and what to do to provide the economic structure we need to sustain it, avoiding at all times any kind of exploitation of a human being by another human being, which is the essence of capitalism. That’s what we’re doing.”

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[1] Raúl Castro’s recently deceased wife Vilma Espín.