Revolutionary and Lesbian: Negotiating Sexual Citizenship in Cuba 383
ity to fulfill her responsibility as a conscientious revolutionary citizen
is curtailed through discriminatory policies or attitudes. They also
serve to illustrate the differences in orientation to sexual citizenship
between the US/European contexts and the Cuban context. In paren-
theses after each heading I offer an approximation of how the same
story might be framed from the US/European perspective in terms of
a demand for full and equal rights to political participation and repre-
sentation and access to welfare entitlements.Ability to obtain socially valued/productive work(Protection from Discrimination in the workplace)
In the text below, the speaker explains how being perceived as gay or
gender nonconforming limits the LGBT subject’s ability to obtain
socially valued/productive work. In addition to the economic effects
of such discrimination, this exclusion denies LGBT subjects the
opportunity to be “good citizens:” productive members of society
who contribute to the nation/Revolution. Since citizenship in Cuba is
predicated on holding a political position which supports the Revolu-
tion, those who don’t contribute as is expected of a citizen risk being
labeled as antisocial, or counterrevolutionary, and pushed outside of
the limits of the social body (UMAP, Mariel boat lift). In a frustrating
Catch-22, being perceived as gay, or having a gender presentation that
does not comply with the norms, means that LGBT Cubans are dis-
criminated against in employment. Because they can’t get work, they
risk being seen as anti-revolutionary “bad citizens,” who refuse to
contribute their labor to the construction of the revolutionary social
project.
707 There was a time in which you go to a work center looking for work
708 and they looked at you
709 and if you were a weak man they told you that there wasn’t any work
710 and if you were a woman who looked very strong they’d tell you that
there wasn’t any work
711 just because they thought you were homosexual.
712 You couldn’t get work