Last week, when I was invited to speak at an event at the LGBT Community Center for Mariela Castro Espin, I was honored and a bit curious. She is a Castro after all, daughter of Raul Castro, the current president of Cuba, and niece of Fidel. I am of the generation that remembers the Cuban revolution, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis and the apparent control by the Soviet Union of a sovereign communist nation 90 miles from Florida. I am a product of the Cold War.
I really knew very little about Castro other than she was founder and director of Cenesex, the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, a noted sexologist, publisher of Sexologia y Sociedad , and an outspoken advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and (most notably) transgender rights. She is the Cuban version of our own Carol Queen. I also knew that the Human Rights Watch recently stated, "Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. The government enforces political conformity using harassment, invasive surveillance, threats of imprisonment, and travel restrictions." How is it possible that this individual is able to walk the tightrope between a totalitarian political philosophy, within the context of an overwhelmingly Catholic populous, and open support for transgender health care, HIV compassionate treatment, same-sex marriage (it's evolving), and opposition to homophobia and transphobia? The answer is, of course, after all, she is a Castro. But, after listening to Castro speak, one quickly realizes that both the issues and Castro herself are much more complicated than that.
Castro was born after the Cuban revolution that overthrew the Batista government in 1959. She has lived under communist rule in Cuba her entire life. Both her father and mother have been members of the Communist Party Central Committee. She is a disciple of the socialist philosophy, the Communist Party and many of the policies instituted by her government. She is intellectual, disarmingly charming, very political, and unconditionally supportive of father Raul and uncle Fidel and, who knows, may be in line to take over the family business. Castro was in sync with the party line when she spoke passionately against a dissident blogger, the "Cuban mafia" in Miami, the U.S. embargo and travel restrictions and by later stating, "The Cuban people have been the victims of state terrorists ... campaigns to misinform the world's population about the power of a revolution."
It was interesting then to listen to Castro speak just as passionately, with excellent knowledge of the issues, about transgender rights and health care. She recalled how her mother, a former president of the Federation of Cuban Women, was an ardent supporter of transgender Cubans and never gave up the fight to include full transgender health benefits in the national health plan. After her mother's death in 2007, Castro continued to lobby high-ranking members of the Communist Party and her father's government to complete what her mother had started. In 2008, transgender Cubans were granted full health coverage by the Cuban government without restrictions or discrimination. She also has been a driving force behind Cubans participating in the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, which she proudly boasts has now evolved into a monthlong festival of the arts and education. Clearly LGBT Cubans have not gained full acceptance, only tepid tolerance, from the government and people of Cuba. But to have the daughter of the president of Cuba openly advocate for LGBT issues on the world stage is not only unprecedented but profound in its very nature. To then use transgender inclusion as the wedge issue to fight for a broad spectrum of additional LGBT rights and other basic human rights is astounding.
Of course, as we in San Francisco acknowledge, transgender activists have been instrumental in our own gay rights struggle at Stonewall in New York, and earlier at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco. But we also recall how some prominent gay rights leaders and organizations have tried on a number of occasions to separate trans issues from gay, lesbian, and bi issues.
I think what Castro has been able to accomplish advocating first for transgender rights in Cuba could be instructional in our own struggle, within the LGBT community at large. I am hopeful she will continue to fight for LGBT, institutional, and basic human rights in Cuba, in her own way, according to her own culture and within the context of her current governmental structure. I believe that having the daughter of the president of Cuba on the side of LGBT Cubans is an advantage very few people have in any nation, irrespective of cultural, religious or governmental ideology.
In the United States, we still face open discrimination within our society and government. Only very recently has our own president "evolved" into supporting same-sex marriage. In California, we still cannot marry whom we love. I am proud of how far we've come in San Francisco on LGB and transgender rights, but even here we still live in a glass house. Cuba is not without severe and substantive human rights failings. No one is arguing that. But, to a greater or lesser degree, so are many other nations and states. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently stated in Geneva, "Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights." Castro was quoted on ABC News as saying, "If we do not change our patriarchal and homophobic culture ... we cannot advance as a new society. ... We will establish relationships [on the] basis of social justice and social equality..." Astonishingly similar.
Theresa Sparks is the executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.