Revolutionary and Lesbian: Negotiating Sexual Citizenship in Cuba 395
specific moments of interaction” and the contours of the moment to
which they respond are constantly changing (Leap, 2008: 287). In the
last five years, the Cuban National Assembly began a long overdue
project to update the 1975 Family Code to overcome the law’s hetero-
normative assumptions, and offer same-sex couples the same legal
rights guaranteed male-female partnerships, including legal marriage
and adoption (Edith, 2007).
For the last several years, the government has sponsored large pub-
lic events in Havana on May 17, International Day against Homopho-
bia and Transphobia, to raise awareness and celebrate (IDAHO,
2009). The rights of transgendered Cubans have been championed by
Mariela Castro Espin, daughter of current president Raul Castro. As a
result of the support that Castro Espin’s National Center for Sex Edu-
cation has offered transgendered activists, great changes have been
made: transgendered Cubans can now legally change their gender on
ID cards, and sexual reassignment surgeries are being offered within
the framework of the National Health System.
Today, the legal changes proposed by the state to the Family Code
have been put on hold as those promoting them realized that,
although the government was committed to the changes, much more
education needed to be done with the general population to make
such changes recognized as legitimate by the majority of the popula-
tion. Just as Barbara suggested, the power of the media has been har-
nessed to this end. Once a month, a LGBT themed film is presented,
with open discussion afterwards, at a movie theatre in downtown
Havana. Last summer, Brokeback Mountain was shown to nationwide
television audiences in a primetime Friday-night movie slot. The mov-
ies shown in this timeslot are always the subject of office gossip on
Monday mornings and Brokeback Mountain was no exception. A
series of PSAs for Cuban television based on the slogan “Two of the
same also make a couple/pair,” use humor to challenge heterosexist
assumptions, portraying the morning rituals of two young same sex
couples. Things are changing in Cuba, and if Barbara’s predictions