Politics and Civil Society in Cuba

Revolutionary and Lesbian: Negotiating Sexual Citizenship in Cuba 373

tradictory and reframes these identities in ways which challenge the

“expectations of power and authority,” namely that it is impossible to

be lesbian AND revolutionary (Leap, 2008:287). Through the genre of

a life story narrative, Barbara explains the ways in which the sexual cit-

izenship of LGBT people has been limited in Cuba and challenges the

revolutionary state and society to become advocates for the full citi-

zenship of LGBT people.

Background: Gay ≠ Revolutionary

Since the early years of the Revolution, being revolutionary and being

gay were seen as mutually exclusive self-identifications; a gay person

could not be a “good citizen,” a good revolutionary, or a member of

the Communist Party. In the 1960s, the construction of a new revolu-

tionary society required the transformation of the Cuban subject into

the “new man” (Bejel, 2001:99). Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses

(who refuse to complete obligatory military service), bourgeois intel-

lectuals, and young people who refuse to study or work were among

those who did not conform to the Revolution’s idea of the “new

man,” and as a result were labeled as antisocial, and temporarily

expelled from the social body to the UMAP (Unidad Militar de Produc-

cion Agricola—Military Units for Agricultural Production) camps to

perform agricultural labor in the countryside with the hopes that their

socially deviant behavior could be cured, allowing them to be reinte-

grated into the new socialist society (Bejel, 2001). The project met

with protests nationally and internationally, and in less than two years

they were closed.

In 1971, The First National Congress of Education and Culture

made homophobia official state policy by designating homosexuality

as an “intrinsically ‘antisocial’ and ‘socio-pathological’ behavior,” and

banned homosexuals from working directly with young people or rep-

resenting Cuba in cultural activities abroad (Bejel, 2001:105). The

National Congress of Education and Culture suggested severe penal-

ties for homosexual behavior or corrupting minors. The policies