Feminism, Gender & LGBTI Spaces
Queens and Queers: the Role of Havana’s Gay Bars
By: Natalie Hanson
The role of physical locations in communities social fabric is crucial. From the Malecon’s central role in the local social scene[1], to the gay bar in the U.S. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) community[2]. Each physical location plays a key role in community construction. With the Cuban LGBTI community however, the points of gathering differ from those witnessed in the U.S. The relative mobility or immobility reflects the attitudes within the larger social context. More specifically, the early adaptation of informal meeting places by the Cuban LGBTQ community reflects a larger issue regarding mobility and persecution by the state. Thus, the mobility of gatherings became crucial to the LGBTI community’s ability to come together in spite of the state-sponsored hostility. However, the Cuban LGBTI community’s recent progress in Cuba has led to the ability to establish formal gay bars, as well as allow otherwise straight bars to host gay nights. This has resituated LGBTI gathering points, and created known gathering spaces for locals and tourists alike. This ability to formally establish gay bars reflects the changing attitudes of both the government and society.
This has been important for the LGBTI communities in havana since the value of an affirmative space is central to identity formation. In Benjamin Forest’s 1995 study, where he examines the influence of geographical spaces on the development of behavioral and presentation styles[3], he writes that:
“…Places take on importance primarily as sites of routine activities, so that the important issues are how the daily lives of gays and lesbians are constrained or empowered in particular localities”[4] In other words, the geographical location’s role in the daily lives of gays and lesbians is crucial, as it depicts the exact forces that either “constrain” or “empower” these individuals[5].
What also must be acknowledged is the role of “routine activities”, specifically how cyclical action in specific locations can translate into the affirmation or rejection of internal identity. Forest addresses this, stating that “the capacity to experience place as a whole helps to resolve the internal contradiction of identity”[6]. It is in the ability of the individual to fully inhabit the space both in action and physicality that can result in identity solidification or contradiction. The “internal contradiction” Forest refers to, when translated to the LGBTI community, is one wherein the individual identity is at odds with that of the larger social context; in this case, a larger heteronormative social context. Thus, the gay bar becomes not simply a gathering place, but the site of social affirmation and cognitive reconciliation.
In light of this, the heteronormative standard that emerged during the early years of the Revolution effectively pushed out possibility for formal LGBTI spaces such as gay bars. More specifically, with the Revolution, came the establishment of the “New Man” and the “New Woman”[7], two identities that were meant to encapsulate the ideal revolutionaries in the New Cuba. However, this resulted in drawing a distinct line between the “New Man” and the “New Woman”, and heightening their respective masculine and feminine qualities to further distinguish them from each other. In his letter, Che Guevera sought to define the “new man” as “very much a man”[8], going into great length about how he should be “strong” and “fearless”[9]. The new woman, on the other hand, was strictly tied to reproduction and supporting the man, her role essentially as a caretaker[10]. Jafari Allen argues that the perpetuation of an “ideologically singular sex/gender system”[11] was an attempt to build the “socialist nation state”, and to create specific, gendered roles for Cuban citizens in revolutionary Cuba[12]. In this capacity, the government created an all or nothing system, wherein one was “a man or a woman. He or she is ideologically and politically Marxist, sexually “straight,” religiously atheist or agnostic, and racially ‘mixed’”[13]. This absolutist system then resulted in two heteronormative ideals meant to do away with the “artifact of capitalist bourgeois decadence”: homosexuality[14].
In establishing the “New Man” and “New Woman” ideals, the homosexual male then became the antithesis of the revolutionary, one who is viewed as “rapacious and flighty – concerned only with their own pleasure and unwilling to make sacrifices”[15]. The gay man was everything the Revolutionary new man was not; cowardly, materialistic, unable to see past hedonistic pleasures.[16] This demonization of the gay community allowed the government to perpetuate the “hetero-patriarchal obsession of the former colonial or newly independent state to discipline certain bodies toward particular projects of legitimation and consolidation”[17]. This “discipline”[18] was meant to effectively create what was viewed as a legitimate form of statehood and citizenry, wherein the nation-state was only considered viable and legitimate as long as it adhered to the traditional modes of gender and sexuality.
As such, the role of LGBTI affirmative spaces quickly turned from areas of affirmation to cultural flashpoints. More specifically, in their existence, LGBTI gatherings became a direct action against the state. Viewed as places of “counterrevolutionary activities”, the perpetuation and affirmation of the LGBTI community adhered to the state’s initial depictions of the gay man’s supposedly inherit anti-revolutionary nature[19]. Subsequently, gay bars and gathering points came to be viewed as threats to the Revolution, resulting in further policing of the LGBTI community and the “establishment of UMAP camps (Military Units for the Aid of Production)”[20]. The UMAP camps were supposedly focused on “safeguarding the revolution and guaranteeing the public good”[21]; in other words, they were concentration camps focused on re-assimilating threats to the Revolution[22].
Although Cuba would decriminalize homosexuality and soften its stance on LGBTI issues, the necessity of LGBT affirming spaces evolved to manifest in an informal capacity, as the state would not initially endorse LGBTI spaces. These informal spaces often take the shape of what Allen terms to be, “twenty-peso part[ies]”; gatherings for “foreign and Cuban men who have sex with men”[23]. In effect, they serve one of the purposes of the gay bar, without the official nor permanent establishment. The twenty-peso parties are considered “officially extralegal… [a] paid gathering not licensed by the state”[24], and subsequently were communicated informally[25]. In this capacity, although gay bars were initially considered banned by the Revolution, the LGBTI community still sought to create safe spaces via various means. With the development of the “twenty-peso parties”, Havana has seen a type of economy develop. This economy, essentially consists of the usage of the foreigner as a commodity for the local Cuban. More specifically, Allen writes: “…if the young Cubano wants to attend the twenty-peso party, he will mention it if the [foreigner] does not. After he agrees to go, often the young man – now the [foreigner’s] host for the evening – will invite his friends to join their party…Once at the fiesta, the foreigner will pay twenty pesos (one U.S. dollar) each for the entry of the Cubans”[26] The foreigner is no longer a man or an individual, but a resource, paying “for the entry of the Cubans”[27]. In this manner, the foreigner is then an access point for the gay affirming space. In exchange, the foreigner receives sexual favors. This economic prostitution has since been translated to the new setting of the formal gay bar and gay nights[28].
Despite its controversial history with LGBTI rights, Cuba has seen extensive progress in accepting the LGBTI community. Although much work remains, the ability to now establish formal LGBTI-affirmative spaces demonstrates changing attitudes both within the government and socially. Although old dynamics and attitudes might remain, the establishment of a specific area is the first step in the right direction, and indication that although machismo still remain, progress is being made. The establishment of LGBTI affirming spaces is a step in the right direction.
[1] Lightfoot, Claudia. Havana: A Cultural and Literary Companion. New York: Interlink, 2002. Print.
[2] Forest, Benjamin. "West Hollywood as Symbol: The Significance of Place in the Construction of a Gay Identity." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Environ. Plann. D 13.2 (1995): 133-57. Web.
[3] Forest, Benjamin. "West Hollywood as Symbol: The Significance of Place in the Construction of a Gay Identity." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Environ. Plann. D 13.2 (1995): 133-57. Web.
[4] Forest, Benjamin.
[5] Forest, Benjamin.
[6] Forest, Benjamin.
[7] HAMILTON, CARRIE, and Dore Elizabeth. Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics, and Memory. U of North Carolina, 2012. Web.
[8] HAMILTON, CARRIE, and Dore Elizabeth. Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics, and Memory. U of North Carolina, 2012. Web.
[9] HAMILTON, CARRIE, and Dore Elizabeth.
[10] HAMILTON, CARRIE, and Dore Elizabeth.
[11] Allen, Jafari S. Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba. Durham: Duke UP, 2011. Print.
[12] Allen, Jafari S.
[13] Allen, Jafari S.
[14] Allen, Jafari S.
[15] Allen, Jafari S.
[16] Allen, Jafari S.
[17] Allen, Jafari S. Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba. Durham: Duke UP, 2011. Print.
[18] Allen, Jafari S.
[19] Arguelles, Lourdes, and B. Ruby Rich. "Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes toward an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience, Part I." Chicago Journals. University of Chicago, Summer 1984. Web. 6 June 2016.
[20] Arguelles, Lourdes, and B. Ruby Rich.
[21] Arguelles, Lourdes, and B. Ruby Rich.
[22] Arguelles, Lourdes, and B. Ruby Rich.
[23] Allen, Jafari S.
[24] Allen, Jafari S.
[25] Allen, Jafari S.
[26] Allen, Jafari S.
[27] Allen, Jafari S.
[28] Allen, Jafari S.