You have to raise awareness

According to the article published by journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada about the recent LGBTQ march in Santiago de Cuba, some members of the LGBTQ community were disappointed by the low turnout and doubted that these events would make a notable difference in changing the atmosphere for sexual minorities in Cuba, as their message does not necessarily reach those that are most biased toward them.

One of the participants in the march, Sergio Gómez, said, “The work of increasing sensitivity in regard to this topic should also be brought to workplaces and student centers, because there is a high amount of homophobia in those places and there are many people who are discriminated against.”

Another participant, Alexey Duany, agreed, and said that in order for sexual minorities’ situation to improve, “you have to raise awareness”.

The necessity to raise awareness and educate the general public is apparent in the lack of knowledge in Cuban society about sexuality and gender and the discrimination that persists. Encounters with police remain a problem for transgender people.

Allen did acknowledge that police interaction with transgender individuals used to be more dangerous “under strict communism.” She added, “The police used to automatically pick up [trans people] as soon as they saw them go outside dressed, but they don’t do that anymore.”

However, transgender women still get stopped without warrant on the streets. In 2012, for example, Allen was walking through the streets of Havana at night with two of the transgender women who are the subjects of her book.

A police officer stopped them in the street and asked for the identification numbers of the two transgender women but not Allen.

“The police quietly wrote [the numbers] down in [their] book, and I was sort of indignant,” Allen said. After the police left, she asked the two women she was with, “Aren’t you angry?” and one responded, “No, we’re used to it.”

In addition, perhaps more notably, transgender women on the island face devastating consequences as a result of workforce discrimination. There are still many societal barriers affecting transgender individuals’ freedom to get a job.

“They’re very limited as [far as] what kinds of work they can do,” Allen said, adding that some of the only jobs trans people can get have to do with performance or beautification, such as doing hair or makeup. Allen commented that, because these jobs do not provide a lot of money, many transgender women live in poverty, or are forced into prostitution.

As a result, many have contracted AIDS; the lack of sex education among trans people and the influx of foreigners who brought the virus with them over the past decade have exacerbated this problem.

Allen added that transgender individuals are not able to change their birth name, even though they can obtain state-funded gender reassignment surgery. In addition, this right to have surgery comes with some caveats.

According to The Washington Blade, many of the independent LGBTQ rights advocates that have spoken with the publication insist, “fewer than 30 trans Cubans have been able to receive” gender reassignment surgery since the law was implemented in 2008.

While Allen did not confirm any specific numbers, she did say that only one of the three main subjects of her book has been able to get genital surgery. “It’s a long, long list [to get gender reassignment surgery],” Allen said, adding that the wait can take multiple years. Allen also noted that the surgeries are not even done by Cuban doctors but rather volunteer Belgian doctors who come to the country to perform them once a year.

Continuing discrimination toward LGBTQ people in Cuba is not necessarily the result of a deep-seated devotion to the Catholic Church, as has been the case in many other Latin American countries. In fact, only 27 percent of Cubans identify as Catholic, and 44 percent identify as “not religious.”

These statistics sharply contrast with the large number of Catholics residing in other Caribbean islands.

In the Dominican Republic, for example, 40 percent of its population is practicing Catholic and 29 percent is non-practicing but still identifies as Catholic, while only 11 percent state that they have no religion.

In Puerto Rico, Catholics make up between one-half and two-thirds of the population.

This paucity of Cubans who identify as Catholic in comparison with surrounding Caribbean countries is most likely a result of religious suppression by the Cuban government. For decades, in order to be a part of the ruling Communist Party, one had to be atheist.

Even though Cuba ceased to be officially atheist and allowed religious groups greater freedoms starting in 1992, the originally irreligious ideals of Fidel Castro’s Revolution appear to have had an effect on attitudes regarding religion in the country.

This gives hope that, while discrimination toward LGBTQ people is still a major issue in Cuban society, Catholic doctrines that traditionally disapprove of the sexuality and identities of LGBTQ individuals will not present the same hurdles to equality that might be found in other Latin American countries that are more intensely grounded in Catholicism.

• Olivia Marple is a research associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Part 1 of this op-ed can be found at www.thenassauguardian.com/opinion/op-ed. Part 3 will be printed in next Wednesday's edition of The Nassau Guardian.