The next revolution

There are no gay bars or nightclubs in Havana -- but there is always a party.

Every Saturday night at 11:30 near Yara Cine, the city's most famous cinema, word spreads rapidly. " La fiesta? Necesita taxi? (Party? Do you need a taxi?)," a physician doubling as a party recruiter asks young men in clingy lycra shirts and tight jeans as they gather in the shadows of a park across the street.

Police patrol the sidewalk, ready to censure prostitutes and lewd behaviour, so the party organizer works discreetly, directing the men to the ancient sky-blue Chevies and red Oldsmobiles that are parked nearby.

Once a car fills up, the driver ferries the passengers, at $2 a person, to a neighbourhood half an hour away on the city's outskirts. A rock in the road marks the correct driveway. The driver blinks his headlights twice until a gate opens.

Inside, security guards frisk the guests, who enter a garden with lemon and orange trees and a makeshift bar selling Czech beer and Havana Club rum. Corrugated iron walls make it secure, while red and green strobe lights shimmer under the stars, and sexy Ricky Martin posters decorate the patio stage.

The cloak and dagger isn't just for show: The party is illegal and may be the biggest of its kind anywhere in the Caribbean. Before the night is over, more than 400 paying guests will drop by. They'll include a few transvestites and women, but the vast majority will be gay men.

Cubans can obtain licences to hold parties, but they can neither charge admission nor sell alcohol. As well, police could shut down a gay gathering at any time -- the penal code forbids public manifestations of homosexuality -- and street thugs have been known to spoil the fun with a barrage of rocks and bottles.

Still, "this is like heaven for us," says one patron, swaying to Beyoncé. "Finally, a place where we can feel comfortable. We should be able to do this in downtown Havana, but at least we have this."

Aly Lin Labadie lives in Havana, and was 15 when he told his mother and stepfather about his sexual orientation. The impact, he recalls, was "poof," like "a bomb had dropped," and as a result, "I am one of few Cubans without an address."

"My stepfather said, 'I don't want homosexuals in the same house where I live,' " Mr. Labadie says. "He was a very macho guy, a civil marine, and he just couldn't accept this."

Not only was the boy kicked out, the stepfather went to the registration office and had him officially delisted as a resident of the house. His identity card was changed to read sin domicilio (without address), and he lost his access to government rations.

Today, machismo remains a potent cultural force, but Cuba has come a long way since the 1960s, when Fidel Castro's Communist revolution removed gays from government and teaching posts, and sent them to work in special "military production aid units." No longer does the Cuban government consider same-sex relationships to be a "bourgeois perversion."

Compared with cutting-edge Canada, where homosexuals now have the right to marry in seven provinces and one territory, and Parliament is about to vote on federal legislation governing same-sex marriage, this island of 11.3 million is far from the forefront of the gay-rights movement.

Being gay in Cuba remains much more complicated, and yet there have been some advances. Homosexuality was decriminalized in the 1980s, and the internationally acclaimed 1993 film Fresa y Chocolate ( Strawberry and Chocolate) took on the touchy topic of homophobia by chronicling the relationship between a gay intellectual and a straight Communist.

Gays are still prohibited from serving in the armed forces here, whereas Canadians learned this week that their military marked its first same-sex union last month in Nova Scotia. But the government now promotes the acceptance of sexual diversity and runs safe-sex campaigns on television. Even Salir de Noche, the popular Cuban telenovela, featured a married man who came out of the closet.

Former MP Svend Robinson, whose partner of 11 years, Max Riveron, is Cuban, says he has travelled to the island more than a dozen times and has seen a sea change in people's attitudes.

"You still don't see organized gay activists in Cuba," he concedes. "But the government now recognizes that sexual diversity shouldn't be threatening but should be welcomed, and could have a positive impact on the economy, especially when it comes to tourism."

Mr. Robinson, who met Mr. Riveron at an international solidarity event in Havana, insists that "there is a lot more openness -- and Fidel has acknowledged that the treatment of gay people in the past was wrong."

The gay-party scene remains quasi-illegal, but Cuba may be the only country in Latin America with anything like its National Centre for Sexual Education, which focuses on treating transsexuals. Overseen by psychologist Mariela Castro (her father, Raul, is the President's brother and presumed successor), the centre espouses integrating homosexuals into mainstream society, and is working with the government to finance sex-change operations.

As well, Cuba has ended the forcible quarantine of HIV-positive people, and now allows them to become outpatients after spending six months in special sanitariums around the country where they learn how to live with the disease. Ironically, some opt not to go home, preferring to stay where they can enjoy free anti-retroviral medication, counselling and medical care.

This is no small accomplishment in a country that has endured more than four decades of " el bloqueo," the U.S. economic embargo responsible for the chronic shortage of everything from beef and Band-Aids to Tylenol and soda pop. Compared with the beans and rice ordinary people must endure, the food at these clinics is so good that some Cubans allegedly infected themselves intentionally during the extreme austerity that followed the collapse of Cuba's onetime great benefactor, the Soviet Union.

And yet despite these very real advances for gays and lesbians, overcoming the machismo that defines Latino culture is difficult. Homophobia most certainly persists, especially in the countryside and among the less well educated.

Mr. Labadie, for example, had nowhere to turn when he left home. A Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians had formed in 1994, but was ultimately suppressed. Even today, lobbying for the right to same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption is almost inconceivable in a country that in 2003 jailed 75 librarians, independent journalists and opposition members who advocated for democracy and a free press. Individual rights and freedoms take a backseat to the collective good.

In this ambivalent climate, professional gays and lesbians and ordinary working stiffs struggle to create an identity, and a public space for themselves.

Ms. Castro's centre, which recently set up a website and a chat room for gays and lesbians, is a beacon of hope for people such as Mr. Labadie (although like many Cubans, he has trouble getting access to the Internet) -- and even more so for the transsexuals who come to its office in an old colonial house in central Havana for a weekly support program.

There are currently 25 diagnosed transsexuals, 18 of whom want to switch genders, and the centre has been working with a team of doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and government officials to lobby for the right to perform the required operation.

Sex-change surgery has happened in Cuba -- once in 1988. The vast negative feedback, along with the economic collapse and shortage of hormone drugs, has kept it from being repeated. But Maira Rodriguez, a psychologist at the centre, says Ms. Castro is gaining ground with the government. "This is her cause and it is hard work."

But more is needed. "Getting the support of the state isn't good enough when you haven't changed society's attitudes."

Mr. Labadie, now 30, knows this all too well. As well as being gay, he was homeless -- no small problem considering the country has a severe housing crisis. An aunt took him in, and then in 2002, he met Rafael de Jesus Vera, 26, and moved in with him and his mother in a walk-up in a working-class suburb.

While their living conditions are by no means ideal -- they sleep together on a tattered mattress on the living-room floor -- Mr. Labadie is relieved that he no longer has to hide his sexuality. He and Mr. Vera are also thankful to the Cuban government for the free health care they receive, as HIV-positive outpatients.

Mr. Vera, who resembles a punk rocker, with his spiky hair and sleeveless, black T-shirt, was diagnosed with the virus in 1997. After a government-mandated stay at a sanitarium, he has managed to stay out of hospital, although he now has AIDS and survives on a cocktail of anti-retrovirals. "They taught me how to live with HIV, taught me the importance of using condoms, about eating properly and they gave me medications. I realize I could live for a long time."

Two years ago, Mr. Labadie also contracted the virus. When he tried to tell his mother and stepfather, they accused him of using the disease as a ploy to re-enter the family home. "When the police came to look for me to take me to the sanitarium, then they finally believed it," he says.

The couple could move permanently to a sanitarium outside Havana, located in a gracious, pre-revolutionary colonial mansion that was home to a cross-dressing relative of former dictator Fulgencio Batista. There, they would have their own apartment (with air conditioning) and the run of the impressive grounds, with its mango and peach groves and vegetable garden.

But the thought of living there does not appeal to them. They would rather maintain their independence as long as possible, and live to see the day when the Saturday-night fiesta takes place at a downtown Havana club, and not in a private house in the country, surrounded by security, and a sense that any moment, it could all be over.

Marina Jiménez is a senior feature writer at The Globe and Mail. This is the third article in her series exploring Cuba's troubled transition from its Soviet-bloc past.

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