Are You Gay? Che Guevara Would Have Sent You To A Concentratn Camp | HuffPost Contributor

Contents:

• FIL CASTRO TAK BLAME FOR PERSECUTN OF CUBAN GAYS
• FIL CASTRO’S HORRIFIC RERD ON GAY RIGHTS
• THIS IS HOW FIL CASTRO PERSECUTED GAY PEOPLE
• FIL CASTRO PUT GAY MEN LABOR CAMPS. HIS NIECE MARIELA IS LEADG CUBA’S LGBTQ REVOLUTN.
• CASTRO ADMS 'JTICE' FOR GAYS AND LBIANS DURG REVOLUTN
• CUBA’S LGBT NCENTRATN MPS AND FIL CASTRO’S HORRIFIC GAY RIGHTS RERD
• DID FIL CASTRO PUT GAY PEOPLE TO NCENTRATN MPS?
• CUBA WANTS YOU TO THK IT’S A GAY PARADISE. IT’S NOT.
• ARE YOU GAY? CHE GUEVARA WOULD HAVE SENT YOU TO A CONCENTRATN CAMP
• DID CHE GUEVARA HELP SEND GAY PEOPLE TO LABOR MPS ALSO LLED UMAP?
• FIL CASTRO TAK BLAME FOR 1960S GAY PERSECUTN
• FIL CASTRO ADMS PERSECUTN OF GAYS 1960S WAS 'UNJT'

FIL CASTRO TAK BLAME FOR PERSECUTN OF CUBAN GAYS

Image ptn, Mr Castro told Carmen Lira that he had not paid enough attentn to the treatment of homosexualsFil Castro has said that he is ultimately rponsible for the persecutn suffered by homosexuals Cuba after the revolutn of former print told the Mexin newspaper La Jornada that there were moments of great jtice agast the gay muny. In the 1960s and 70s, many homosexuals Cuba were fired, imprisoned or sent to "re-tn mps" Castro said homosexuals had tradnally been discrimated Cuba, jt as black people and women.

Amid the fawng enia released upon his long-overdue ath at the age of 90, should never be fotten that he was also an opprsor, torturer, and murrer of gay people. “We would never e to believe that a homosexual uld embody the ndns and requirements of nduct that would enable to nsir him a te revolutnary, a te munist ant, ” Castro told an terviewer 1965.

FIL CASTRO’S HORRIFIC RERD ON GAY RIGHTS

” In the ey of Castro and his revolutnary ra Che Guevara—who equently referred to gay men as marin, “faggots”—homosexualy was herently unterrevolutnary, a bourgeois nce. To a tradnal Lat Amerin machismo that viewed gayns pejoratively, they married an iologil fixatn treatg as polilly unsirable. In 1965, the regime tablished prison work mps known as Milary Uns to Aid Productn (UMAP), to which posed homosexuals, Jehovah’s Wns, and other “unsirable” elements.

Alert to this news, the Mattache Society—one of the earlit gay rights anizatns the Uned Stat—held monstratns outsi the Uned Natns and the Whe Hoe succsively over two days. Four years before the world-famo Stonewall rts, the were two of the first gay rights protts held the Uned Stat. That same year, Allen Gsberg was expelled om Cuba for spreadg mors that Rl Castro—Fil’s brother and succsor as print—was gay and claimg that Guevara was “cute.

THIS IS HOW FIL CASTRO PERSECUTED GAY PEOPLE

Though the Cuban regime closed down the UMAPs the late 1960s, ntued to reprs gay men as iologilly subversive elements. One of the untry’s most distguished wrers, Realdo Arenas, reunted the prison experience he and untls other gay men endured his memoir Before Night Falls. ” Gays prised a signifint portn of the 125, 000 Cubans (“worms, ” Fil Castro’s words) permted to leave the island for the Uned Stat as part of the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

FIL CASTRO PUT GAY MEN LABOR CAMPS. HIS NIECE MARIELA IS LEADG CUBA’S LGBTQ REVOLUTN.

(The 1984 documentary Improper Conduct, which tells the stori of gay and straight Marielos, remas one of the starkt dictments of the Castro regime. ) When the Human Immunoficiency Vis h the island’s gay muny the mid-1980s, the regime’s rponse was to quarante all HIV-posive people sanariums, referred to as “pretty prisons” by the founr of the World Health Organizatn’s Global Program for AIDS.

No doubt attuned to the way which gay rights has bee central to the agenda of a global left creasgly sensive to the claims of inty polics, the Cuban regime recent years has tried to fashn self as beg the vanguard of homosexual liberatn. But no matter how much life for gay Cubans might have improved om the days of forced labor mps, ’s all occurrg wh the ntext of a totalarian society whose cizens nnot vote, are nied basic eedoms like the right to speak or prott eely, and nnot form anizatns pennt of the ernment.

CASTRO ADMS 'JTICE' FOR GAYS AND LBIANS DURG REVOLUTN

Mariela is a hard-re munist who skirts around her fay’s horrific rerd of opprsg LGBT people, and her ersatz gay rights csa reeks of beg a vany project and personaly Wtern progrsiv nohels fall for this pkwashg chara.

Homosexuals were viewed as herently unter-revolutnary and homosexualy was clared a “viatn patible wh the revolutn” by Castro’s regime.

CUBA’S LGBT NCENTRATN MPS AND FIL CASTRO’S HORRIFIC GAY RIGHTS RERD

In 1965, the regime tablished prison work mps known as Milary Uns to Aid Productn (UMAP), where homosexuals, Jehovah’s Wns, and other “unsirable” peopl emed out of le wh the Communist iology were forcefully sent. Extreme opprsn of gay Cubans ntued after the UMAPs: beg sent to prison for homosexual acts, fired om their jobs and banned om jog the Communist Party. Many former mps ntued unr the guise of ‘ary trag’ wh a wage equivalent to the st of one meal a month, and gay men still forced to work them.

DID FIL CASTRO PUT GAY PEOPLE TO NCENTRATN MPS?

Some who had been sent to the mps for beg gay had their ernment ID rds brand to say they had been rcerated, preventg them om seekg any future employment or tn. Rpected wrer Realdo Arenas wrote of the treatment he and other gay Cubans faced prison: “It was a swelterg place whout a bathroom.

Homosexual acts were eventually ma legal Cuba 1979, but that did ltle to end the prejudice and state sanctned opprsn that had taken hold durg the prev two s. Acrdg to a Human Rights Watch report, “the ernment [ 1997] … heightened harassment of homosexuals, raidg several nightclubs known to have gay clientele and allegedly beatg and tag dozens of patrons. Castro said he had not paid enough attentn to the issue of homophobia, claimg: “At the time we were beg sabotaged systematilly, there were armed attacks agast , we had too many problems.

” So says Luis Perez, himself gay and one of the subjects of Mariela’s March: Cuba’s LGBT Revolutn, director Jon Alpert’s new documentary, which now tak on an extra layer of timels sce premier on HBO at 9 p.

CUBA WANTS YOU TO THK IT’S A GAY PARADISE. IT’S NOT.

The socialist who once thought of homosexualy as a creatn of the bourgeoisie experienced somethg of a late--life nversn. For an example of both, look no further than HIV/AIDS, which Cuba appears predomantly to affect gay and bisexual men.

) In some ways, ’s still easier for a trans man to navigate the homophobia and transphobia than a more visible genr challenger, like an outré trans woman who flnts her boobs at a startled ral crowd.

ARE YOU GAY? CHE GUEVARA WOULD HAVE SENT YOU TO A CONCENTRATN CAMP

STORY HIGHLIGHTSCuba sent openly gay men to labor mps wh no charg the '60s and '70sFil Castro acknowledg "persecutn" of gays and lbians durg the RevolutnCastro says the U.

Embargo agast Cuba enuraged his untry to be creative Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Former Cuban lear Fil Castro said he acknowledg the persecutn of gays and lbians durg the Revolutn his untry, acrdg to a newspaper terview published Tuday.

"We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or ath, that we didn't pay enough attentn, " Castro said of the way gays and lbians were treated. In 1979, Cuba crimalized homosexual acts and more recently, there have been efforts to legalize same-sex unns. Far om beg the “gay paradise” the apartheid Castro regime would like you to believe is, Cuba unr the jackboot of the Castro dictatorship has been a verable hell for LGBT Cubans.

DID CHE GUEVARA HELP SEND GAY PEOPLE TO LABOR MPS ALSO LLED UMAP?

In the ey of Castro and his revolutnary ra Che Guevara—who equently referred to gay men as marin, “faggots”—homosexualy was herently unterrevolutnary, a bourgeois nce.

Gays prised a signifint portn of the 125, 000 Cubans (“worms, ” Fil Castro’s words) permted to leave the island for the Uned Stat as part of the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

Fil Castro went unrver as a gay man one of the UMAP mps before revealg himself, as a guard was about to beat him. In 2010, while speakg to the Mexin newspaper La Jornada, Fil Castro apologized for the human rights ab that LGBTQ Cubans, pecially gay men, suffered unr his reign. "If someone is rponsible, 's me, " Castro told La Jornada when asked about the mistreatment of gay men unr his reign, acrdg to the BBC.

FIL CASTRO TAK BLAME FOR 1960S GAY PERSECUTN

Acrdg to historian Ian Lumsn's book Machos, Marin and Gays: Cuba and Homosexualy, the mps served a double purpose: rehabilatg dissints and others unf for army service and extractg cheap labor om those same unsirabl.

" Though there was not exactly a gay muny to speak of before Castro me to power 1959, Cz-Malavé said that, ci like Havana, Cubans were faiar wh sexual difference. "You have major leadg figur lerature and art, like Julian l Casal, that everyone knows that they are gay, " Cz-Malavé said. "They're not prentg themselv, they don't have a gay inty the way we have a gay inty, but their wrg is rmed by queer athetics.

" The UMAPs, as the labor mps are referred to, didn't necsarily target those who intified as gay, but foced on those who acted effemately public: those who were openly effemate and chewed mascule norms. "There was a time after the revolutn where anyone who appeared gay would be harassed, " Santiago said a phone terview. The next LGBTQ rights battle epted 1971, when the first Natnal Congrs on Edutn and Culture rolved that "all maniftatns of homosexual viatn" should be prevented om spreadg, acrdg to Lumsn.

FIL CASTRO ADMS PERSECUTN OF GAYS 1960S WAS 'UNJT'

"There were all of the laws that were wrten the 1970s that were targetg who was the proper revolutnary role mol and gay people were not a proper revolutnary role mol, " Cz-Malavé said. Durg the famo Mariel Boatlift of 1980, many gay Cubans fled, and by several acunts, Cuba was happy to see them leave.