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“on the way things are, the way things ought to be, and (most espe-
cially) the kind of person the speaker claims to be” (Linde, 1993: 81).
The life story narrative is especially powerful as a tool for “under-
standing what speakers do as they construct their narratives and what
is at stake for them in narrating parts of their life story” (Linde, 1993:
81). Linde also explains that “although narratives may be told for
many reasons and many points, part of the hidden point of any narra-
tive is to show that the narrator knows what the norms are and agrees
with them”(1993:123). Despite the discrimination she has faced, and
the ways in which the sexual citizenship of LGBT people has been
limited in Cuba, Barbara still strongly identifies with the Revolution
and believes that these same revolutionary ideals and values and the
state’s goodwill towards oppressed peoples will ultimately result in
state activism on behalf of Cuban LGBT subjects.
Following Leap, I consider life story narratives as ‘queer texts’:
which “enunciate speakers’ claims to gendered and other forms of
social identity” particular to the moment of social interaction in which
they are created, identities which may still be in the process of forma-
tion (2008:287). The process of telling stories “becomes the context
for (ex)pressing those claims, especially when events in those stories
are framed in relation to broader expectations of power and author-
ity” (Leap, 2008:287).
From January through April 2005, I was an active participant in
“OREMI”, a group for lesbian and bisexual women in Havana, Cuba,
organized by the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). As
a member of the group, I proposed a documentary project consisting
of interviews and photographs of women who participated in the
group. I interviewed eight regular participants from different social,
ethnic, racial, generational, educational, and geographical back-
grounds.
This paper analyzes one of these life stories. Through the genre of
a life story narrative, the speaker makes claims to sexual and social
identities which are framed by the hegemonic social worldview as con-