382 Chapter 16
Although the Cuban constitution specifically contemplates mea-
sures intended to guarantee women the same opportunities and possi-
bilities as men in order to “achieve woman’s full participation in the
development of the country” (Cuban Constitution 1992, art. 44), sex-
ual minorities are structurally invisible in the construction of the state
and foundational legal documents like the constitution and the family
code. This structural invisibility, combined with discrimination, chal-
lenges the LGBT subject's ability to fulfill responsibilities of citizen-
ship, therefore excluding them from the opportunity to be recognized
as full citizens.
In the face of perennially hostile relations between the United
States and Cuba, national identity continues to be an extremely impor-
tant part of Cuban habitus. Those who do not fulfill their responsibil-
ities as citizens are seen as threatening to the nation and excluded
from citizenship (in different historical moments: emigrants, non-pro-
ductive able-bodied adults, intellectuals, homosexuals). While in
United States history a multiplicity of identity groups have organized
struggles for political equality, bringing people together to make citi-
zenship claims on the basis of non-normative identities (women's
rights movement, black civil rights movement, LGBT rights move-
ments), in Cuba the construction of a unified nationalism has taken
precedent over these fragmentary late modern identity-based move-
ments. Long before the Revolution, fragmentary identity politics were
seen as counterproductive to real political change and even dangerous
or threatening to nationalist objectives. Given the differences between
the US or European contexts, it is not surprising that the speaker
chooses to fight for inclusion rather than constructing her sexual
identity as oppositional to hegemonic Cuban nationalist or revolution-
ary identities.
Limits to Sexual Citizenship
Each of the stories of discrimination below gives examples to the
ways in which the speaker’s sexual citizenship is limited when her abil-