Is there really this much homophobia in Cuba?

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The photo shows a gay Cuban soliciting money to pay for emigrating. If it's that bad, maybe people who go there because it's a cheap holiday should be ashamed. What do you think?

IIRC, the Castro government imprisoned gays, and some of the 70s radicals who hijacked planes to go there later regretted it because they said the Cubans were also incredibly racist. Something to remember next time you see a lefty in a Che shirt.

Although I think the racism contributed in some way to the revolution. In all honesty, the revolution is really hard to make sense of from today's perspective, and I doubt anyone much under 70 is really much aware of it.

Speaking of Che Guevara though, I don't know how popular those t-shirts are in the US. Younger people who might wear one probably have zero idea of the history or who this guy actually was. They probably just think the picture looks cool. I wouldn’t leap to any conclusions regarding such people's politics. Che is forever young due to having died young. I strongly doubt he ever cared much one way or the other about Communism. He just wanted to live a violent lifestyle and be a hero, f**k any woman he wanted to, etc.

However, there seems to have always been a cult of his admirers that we don't much encounter in the US. I can imagine it might be more a thing in Britain or France. A while back I learned of these tours of Cuba people take on vintage motorcycles (see the link) and the apparent motivation is their nostalgia for Che.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/apr/30/ernesto-guevara-motorbike-tours-cuba?bshm=rimc/2
I doubt the people who take these tours are Communists, but apparently Che was always a big thing in their lives. But then you had that film The Motorcycle Diaries. So worshipful. I simply don't get it. I can see admiring Mao Zedong but this narcissistic upperclass twit from Buenos Aires? SMH.

My post didn't really have much to do with Communism. It's just that if people want to enjoy the cheap rum etc. their US or Canadian dollar buys them in Cuba, they should at least know something about the poor sods they're taking advantage of.

You are right about young people not knowing who Che Guevera is and wearing him on t-shirts.

I bought and wore a cheap t-shirt from a department store, whilst on holiday in a southern European country way back in 2009, as a young adult.

A hotel employee at the hotel I was at kept pointing to the image/print on my t-shirt of Che Guevera and appeared to want to have a conversation about him and I embarrassingly had no idea of who he was.

It taught me to be more careful of the things I wear. I try to learn about history or historical figures before committing to them in any way, nowadays.

Castro also later publicly apologized and worked quite hard to get gay rights up to speed.

Something to remember next time you see someone be harsh on Socialist societies

This is astonishingly wrong. I recommend the biography Che: A Revolutionary Life. El Che was vehemently passionate about his cause.

Took a quick glance at what can be found on line, and I have to agree that he was a Marxist. I still think he was an upper-class twit and also suspect he took himself too seriously. A bit of humility might have led to him living to a ripe old age.

If I recall correctly, the wave of hijackings to Cuba peaked in 1969 or so and then petered out during the 1970's. In 1969, I remember hearing about hijackings to Cuba almost every week.

Before 1970, airplane hijacking wasn't even treated as an international crime. Lots of people hijacked planes and got away with it. People who hijacked planes from either a capitalist country to a communist country or vice versa were usually given political asylum.

What finally brought all these hijackings-for-political-asylum to an end was an international treaty signed in 1970.

Personal note: Back in the late 1940's and 1950's, there was a wave of airplane hijackings in Europe, from Eastern Europe to Western Europe. At least some of these hijackers ended up moving to the U.S.A., and one of them ended up attending the church I grew up in, here in Queens. I have vague memories of knowing him in-person, and of my family attending his funeral, when I was little, back in the 1960's. Then, for several years in the late 1970's and early 1980's, my parents and I lived in an upstairs apartment in his widow's house.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 22 Oct 2023, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Back on topic:

Thanks for letting us know. I just now looked it up and confirmed that there has been significant progress on LGBT rights in Cuba: See Wikipedia.

Mom was a commerical artist who got work from anti castro cuban authors and lobbyist, and I heard about that.

How that was a thing. Castro imprisoning gays, and gender benders, just for being that. Many were defiant...and found resourceful ways to get material to dress up in drag in the latest fashions while in the gulags anyway! Inspiring.

But Castro might well have changed his policy since that time (the Eighties) to keep up the times. Am not up on that.

Latin America in general is not as woke as Anglo North America regardless of the policies of the governments of the particular countries. Same with Eastern Europe (before and after the fall of Communism).Not as pc as western europe. Cuban attitudes, like their cars, might be even more ...fossilized from the past than that of other Latin countries. So even if the government stopped being homophobic the populous might still be.

Castro tried his best to do good for the LGBTQ community in Cuba. He did a lot. Some countries just aren't as advanced as Canada and the US when it comes to the rights of LGBTQ people, but they're waking up.

That may be true. Cuba has been under a great deal of stress since the pandemic. Being a country that probably depends more on tourism than anything else for foreign trade, the government there totally shut down the tourism industry and the economy never recovered. Compare to Mexico that stayed open to foreign visitors the whole time. I believe the numbers of Cuban immigrants appearing at the US border with Mexico has greatly increased recently (no reference to cite though, sorry!). In such a situation, any marginalized group is going to be under pressure. I am talking about trends within society, not official government policy. The screen shot in my OP implies the guy's plight is related to his sexuality. But it's just a screen shot I don't know what he actually said. Sure looks miserable though.

Last edited by MaxE on 22 Oct 2023, 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

America's embargo on Cuba is so petty and awful at this point. Big capitalist boot smushing little socialist country to keep the fat cats happy. I guarantee that if the embargo ended and Cuba started doing really well (it's already doing quite well considering how all-encompassing that embargo is) anti-socialists would leave them alone

The embargo thing is due to petty politics not some sort of ideological dispute.

Things have greatly improved for LGBT people in Cuba recently.

Anyhow, the U.S.A. really needs to end that stupid embargo and become friendlier to Cuba.

Yes, Cuba's human rights situation still isn't the greatest in the world, but neither is ours, and we are allies even with countries like Saudi Arabia. If we're going to be friendly to a country like Saudi Arabia, we have no excuse not to be friendly to Cuba.

Being at odds with Cuba is dangerous to the U.S.A., and will become increasingly dangerous to us as countries like China and Russia gain in power. Cuba is, geographically speaking, like a dagger pointed at the U.S.A.'s heart, as explained in the last part of the following video:


US Geostrategic Weaknesses

Oh sure, and giving scholarship money to the Native Americans makes the years of violent oppression all better too. That's sarcasm btw.