By Jo Ellis Pre-revolutnary Cuba was no paradise for gays and lbians. There were gay bars where homosexual men uld meet, but to be a marine (faggot) was to be a social outst. Laws ma illegal to be gay and police targeted homosexuals
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CUBA WANTS YOU TO THK IT’S A GAY PARADISE. IT’S NOT.
Outsi of the vlatns, historians regard the 1960s as an even more reprsive for one Cuban muny particular: the untry’s homosexual populatn. Even pre-Revolutnary Cuba, the island’s society relegated the homosexual muny to the few LGBT-iendly bars Cuban ci.
Castro and the other leadg revolutnari nsired homosexualy a v product of palism, which had to be rooted out entirely om society. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, gay men were routely imprisoned for solicg sex public lotns, ernment workers lost their jobs bee of their homosexualy, and homosexual artists were censored. From 1965 to 1968, openly homosexual men were round up and rcerated UMAP (Milary Uns to Aid Productn) mps signed to turn them to the heterosexual ial.
6 Though Castro himself has nied that they were forced labor mps, he recently acknowledged that gay men were mistreated certa mps. 7 In another se of historic persecutn, the famo Mariel Boat Lift of 1980, the Castro regime expelled thoands of homosexual Cubans he nsired among other “unsirabl.