Opinions
Fidel’s death leaves us with everything to do
Trump ‘gives’ an enemy back to Cuban government
A sign on the road between the cities of Santa Clara and Sagua la Grande, Cuba, with former Cuban President Fidel Castro‘s picture reads “revolution is unity.” (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
The man of inconsistencies has died. Founder of schools and concentration camps, endless orator and suppressor of dissenting voices, Fidel Castro is defined by his contradictory gestures. While America was in charge of a suit tailored for the party that was the Cold War, he went to dance a Cossack dance in Moscow. When America opened its nuclear umbrella to defend countries without nuclear weapons, he shouted: “Nikita, shoot first.” Fidel Castro had a paradoxical beard.
Cubans are not sure what to do with this body. On one hand, the reforms of recent years have left Fidel’s regime untouched. Cuba remains under the control of a single party and it has failed to overcome the economic stagnation. The Cuban system, at this point, can only survive if stagnation were to continue. Any attempt to correct it would cause the whole thing to collapse.
The mass funerals prove the need to prolong the myth of Fidel, to make it more pharaonic so that Cuba will continue in the routine of immobility.
Barack Obama’s policies interrupted the lethargy. Trump gives the necessary enemy back to Havana. Another context for the regime’s international isolation and eternity is coming. They have a sense of déjà vu when they remember political speeches of confrontation and the scenario where obstinacy was entrenched. It was a landscape with two sides: A battle between good and evil, depending how you look at it.
Raúl Castro’s government made no concession in terms of human rights during the process of normalizing relations. But at least he agreed to sit at the table. Perhaps the United States was not the best interlocutor, but Obama was. Or so it seemed. Because, in any case, his gifts for political communication highlighted the oldness, the ineffectiveness of the governing discourse in Havana.
Over the last year, however, the situation of human rights defenders has deteriorated. A major campaign began in state media against certain emerging forms of journalism, against alternative newspapers. It reached a climax a month before Fidel Castro’s death: Massive detentions when we did not expect them. The arrests appeared to be an inexplicable remedy in the new context of dialogue.
The great funeral that ended in Santiago de Cuba proves that the era of mass mobilizations, the era of dichotomies and political fanaticism has not ended in Cuba. Fidel Castro left behind a country accustomed to a single command and a charismatic leadership, a failing nation that responds to political diversity with intransigence that still works effectively for the Third World and countries that have recently moved to the left, but rule of law does not work domestically.
Independent activists, these islands of civil society who endure, predicted desperate reactions. Repression will increase. They await new attacks against forms of journalism that are beyond state control. Of course, the samizdat newspapers are already unstoppable on the web. They cannot be burned like papers.
LGBT rights activists, however, remain discouraged because it is impossible for us to associate with each other. The fact that some groups function does not imply that a true movement capable of channeling the demands of a community with so many historical debts exists.
Fidel Castro’s death leaves us with everything to do. Political reform is still pending. The system is preparing theirs and there are many indications that it will reform the military, to build some credibility in their exercise of power.
The following has yet to be done: Marriage equality and the press law, administrative decentralization and a pluralistic Parliament. In short, democracy is about to happen without the “historic generation” of the Cuban revolution, without Fidel’s absorbing trajectory. Yes, we will have the clearest way.
Maykel González Vivero is an independent Cuban journalist and LGBT activist.
La muerte de Fidel nos encontró con todo por hacer
Murió el hombre de las incongruencias. Fundador de escuelas y de campos de concentración, orador infinito y mordaza de palabras ajenas, a Fidel Castro lo definen sus gestos contradictorios. Mientras América se encargaba un traje a medida para la fiesta de la Guerra Fría, él se fue a bailar una danza cosaca en Moscú. Cuando América abría su paraguas nuclear, él gritaba: “Nikita, dispara primero.” Fidel Castro tenía una barba paradójica.
Los cubanos no saben a ciencia cierta qué hacer con este cadáver. Por un lado, el régimen de Fidel permanece intocado, a pesar de las reformas de los últimos años. Cuba sigue sometida al partido único y no consigue superar la deformación económica. El sistema cubano, a estas alturas, sólo puede sobrevivir si persiste en la deformación. Cualquier intento de corrección acabaría por derrumbar el edificio.
Los multitudinarios funerales prueban la necesidad de prolongar el mito de Fidel, de hacerlo más faraónico, para que Cuba continúe en la rutina de su inmovilidad.
Las políticas de Barack Obama interrumpieron el letargo. Ahora Trump le devuelve el enemigo necesario a La Habana. Viene otro pretexto para el aislamiento internacional y la eternidad del régimen. Los discursos políticos de confrontación recuerdan, como un déjà vu, al escenario donde se enquistó la obstinación. Un paisaje con dos orillas. Una batalla entre el bien y el mal, según la orilla que se use para mirar.
El gobierno de Raúl Castro no hizo concesión en materia de derechos humanos durante el proceso de normalización de relaciones. Pero al menos accedía a sentarse a la mesa. Quizás Estados Unidos no era el mejor interlocutor, pero Obama sí lo era. O lo parecía. Porque, en cualquier caso, sus dotes para la comunicación política evidenciaron la vejez, la inoperancia del discurso gobernante en La Habana.
Durante el último año, no obstante, la situación de los defensores de derechos humanos empeoró. Comenzó una gran campaña de los medios estatales contra cierto periodismo emergente, contra los periódicos alternativos que aparecieron en los últimos meses. Llegó el clímax un mes antes de la muerte de Fidel Castro: detenciones masivas cuando no las esperábamos, cuando las detenciones parecían un recurso inaplicable en el nuevo contexto de diálogo.
El gran funeral concluido en Santiago de Cuba prueba que la era de las movilizaciones, la era de las dicotomías y el fanatismo político, no ha acabado en Cuba. Fidel Castro dejó un país habituado al mando único y al liderazgo carismático, una nación defectuosa que responde a la diversidad política con intransigencia, que todavía funciona afectivamente para el tercer mundo y las recientes izquierdas, pero no funciona hacia adentro como un Estado de derecho.
Los activistas, esas islas que la sociedad civil conserva, pronostican reacciones desesperadas. La represión arreciará. Aguardan nuevos ataques al periodismo que se consolida fuera del control estatal. Desde luego, ya los periódicos samizdat resultan indetenibles en la web. No se les puede quemar como a papeles.
Los activismos por los derechos LGBT, en cambio, continúan desalentados por la imposibilidad de asociación. Que funcionen algunos grupos no implica que exista un verdadero movimiento capaz de encauzar las demandas de una comunidad con tantas deudas históricas.
La muerte de Fidel Castro nos encontró con todo por hacer. La reforma política sigue pendiente. El sistema prepara la suya y abundan indicios de que se hará en provecho de los militares, para construirles alguna credibilidad en su ejercicio del poder.
Todo está por hacer: el matrimonio igualitario y la ley de prensa, la descentralización administrativa y el parlamento plural. En fin, la democracia está por hacerse. Sin la generación histórica, sin la trayectoria absorbente de Fidel, eso sí, tendremos el camino más despejado.
Maykel González Vivero es un periodista y activista LGBT independiente cubano.
Opinions
WorldPride begins — let’s hope it ends well
D.C. events kick off despite boycotts, Trump attacks
As WorldPride begins with Trans Pride on May 17,, we can only hope when it is over on June 9t we will all be raving about its success.
When D.C. first got designated as host city in November 2022, after Taiwan didn’t work out, there were initial estimates of 2.5 to 3 million people showing up in D.C. to party and celebrate. We talked about this 50th anniversary of Pride as celebrating five decades of advocacy, visibility, and unity, for the LGBTQ community in Washington, D.C., honoring the past, celebrating the present, and inspiring the future.
Anticipation was greatly tempered when Trump, the felon, racist, anti-trans homophobe, liar, and all-around SOB, won the election in November 2024. Then the planning became more difficult and stressful. But here we are and the excitement is palpable. The signs are up around D.C. and Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been so great for the LGBTQ community, is walking a tightrope to keep D.C. afloat, never knowing what the felon in the White House will do next. To her credit, she is doing an amazing job keeping him at bay. But his vicious anti-trans positions, and his general homophobia, have put a cloud over WorldPride. His immigration policies have led countries around the world to tell their citizens to be very wary if they come to the United States. It is projected as foreign tourists stay away, the United States could lose $12.5 billion this year.
Despite all that, the people at Capital Pride Alliance, who are running WorldPride, have done a commendable job of putting together a program for everyone. From the Human Rights Conference, to the parade, to the festival, where Cynthia Erivo will perform. Shakira will be doing the opening concert at Nat’s stadium, and there are more superstars at the dance party at the RFK site, that should be the site of the new Commanders domed stadium by 2030.
But let us never forget all this is taking place at a time when the United States has a president who is creating havoc in the world and embarrassing us even among our allies. He is a liar and a grifter, a man who thinks nothing of putting people’s lives in danger whether it is sending people illegally to prisons in El Salvador, or creating a culture so nasty, a trans person takes their life in their hands just walking down the street.
He surrounds himself with people like Stephen Miller who wants to suspend habeas corpus, and his Nazi sympathizing co-president, Elon Musk, who just got Trump to invite a bunch of racist South Africans to move here. It’s going on while we have a Secretary of HHS, RFK, Jr., who takes his grandchildren swimming in a polluted creek, and tells others to risk their children’s lives by avoiding vaccines. A president who has cut $800 million in grants from NIH meant to do research to save lives in the LGBTQ community, along with cutting grants and programs that have worked successfully to save people in Africa from dying of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and polio. This is what we are dealing with. Like it or not, this is the backdrop to WorldPride 2025.
Yet, if we give in to this horror, we make it even worse. WorldPride is a way we say to people here in the United States, and those around the world, we in the LGBTQ community are never going back into the closet. We are proud, we are smart, and we are valuable. We make the world a better place, and we will continue to do so despite the pig who occasionally sits in the Oval Office when he is not out golfing or grifting. We can never allow the gay Republicans who make excuses for him, the gay Secretary of the Treasury who has yet to speak out for his community, to go unchallenged. Their silence hurts us as much as the felon sitting in the Oval Office because as the Blade wrote, they are traitors. It is unfortunate, but once again the slogan silence = death has never been more real.
So, speak up, speak out, never stay quiet. Let the world know you are here, and you care. Your life is important and fuck them if they don’t understand that or value it.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
Let love and compassion guide our response to Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis
Former president is diminished, but he and family deserve love and prayers
When I heard Joe Biden had serious prostate cancer, I felt immediate compassion for him and his family. I am a prostate cancer survivor myself. Then I heard how Trump, and some of his MAGA Republicans, responded and was amazed at how they are able to constantly sink to new lows. Trump’s son posted on X “What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another cover-up???” Clearly, they will never give up on being vile human beings.
The equally disgusting Joe Scarborough had on a doctor who declared he positively knows Biden must have known about his cancer years ago, although he knows nothing about the case. The reality, coming from many specialists, is at this time only Biden’s doctors know when he was diagnosed, and whether he even had regular PSA tests done, and when. Based on the latest research, the American Urological Association (AUA) age guidelines are that they do not recommend routine PSA screening for men 70 or older. This is because prostate cancer is normally very slow growing, and if you were to be diagnosed after 70, you will likely die of something else. Then you had the felon in the White House talking about “stage nine” cancer. Is he really so dumb? Guess he is as he tries to prove it nearly every time he opens his mouth. Talk about diminished.
Now is Biden diminished from what he was years ago? It is clear he is. Should the people around him have tried to hide that in order to have him run again, no! But the-then president’s hiding health issues is nothing new. Wilson was severely impaired and it is said his wife Edith ran the country for his last year in office. The same was said about Nancy Reagan when they hid Reagan’s Alzheimer’s. Kennedy hid his Addison’s disease and other infirmities, and Trump hid how sick he was from COVID, when being helicoptered to the hospital. Is it wrong to hide these things from the American public, yes, but clearly not unusual. Actually, the media is often complicit in this, which many said they were in Biden’s case. Then you have a guy like Jake Tapper who is happy to be complicit, so he can now write a book about it and make loads of money. Very sad.
I think the time has come in the case of Joe Biden, for us to just offer him and his family some love and prayers, and the hope he will be able to manage his cancer and live a long life. Then turn the page and deal with the things that will matter more to the lives of the American people today.
Those are the things the felon in the White House, and his Nazi sympathizing co-president, along with the MAGA Congress, are trying to do to them. Things like taking away their healthcare, and thereby also causing the closure of some rural hospitals. Things like the mass firings of federal workers, including thousands of veterans. Things like making it harder for our veterans to access their healthcare by cutting services at the Veterans hospitals. Things like increasing costs for groceries, and other items, due to the felon’s ineffective use of tariffs. Things like seeing college costs go up, as foreign students who pay the full fare at most schools, are sent home or denied visas. Things like making it harder to file for social security by closing so many offices, and pretending to lower drug prices, but not really doing it. Things like cutting research looking for cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, MS, HIV/AIDS, and a host of other diseases, which will hurt people for decades to come. Things like creating havoc in the world, and bowing down to dictators. Things like walking away from our allies and making the world a less safe place for all of us, including abandoning Ukraine, and cozying up to his friend Putin. I always believed Putin has some dirt on him. Trump said Zelenskyy would be responsible for WW III. But it’s Trump who will be, if it happens. Then we must put a focus on the idiot who is secretary of HHS, RFK Jr., and whether he will allow the flu and covid vaccines, being readied for the fall, to be available in a timely manner. Will he continue to disparage all vaccines, and by doing so, cause deaths here, and around the world. Things like abandoning the fight against climate change and thereby screwing the planet and future generations.
These are the things the American public really needs to know about, and care about. It may have been wrong to hide Biden’s being diminished, but he is no longer in office, and he no longer impacts people’s lives on a daily basis. The felon in the WH does, and that is where the focus must be.
A first generation American from Queens, N.Y., Kameny was a decorated WWII veteran. With a prodigious 148 I.Q., he earned a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University. In 1957 he was recruited by the Army Map Service, a pioneering agency in space exploration.
In 1953 in the wake of McCarthyism, President Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450 that prohibited homosexuals from military or civilian employment. Having nothing to do with workplace conduct, the Army learned that Kameny might be a homosexual. When confronted, he equivocated and was terminated. Unlike then thousands of other homosexuals terminated from government employment, Kameny fought back.
He took on the military and Civil Service Commission including being the first openly gay man to file an appeal about gay rights to the U.S. Supreme Court. He helped co-found and chair the Mattachine Society of Washington, the first gay rights organization in the nation’s capital.
He wrote letters to, among others, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. He founded and chaired the Eastern Conference of Homophile Organization, the nation’s first regional gay organization.
In the 1960s homosexuality, even with a consenting adult in the privacy of one’s bedroom was criminal. The police entrapped and extorted gay men. The American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental illness. A bar could lose its license if there was more than one homosexual in their establishment. Homosexuals were considered dangerous, deviant and demented.
Kameny coined the phrase “Gay Is Good.” He organized picketing called Annual Reminders each July 4 from 1965 to 1969 at Independence Hall. The picketers were the first to call for gay equality. The 1965 Annual Reminder had 39 activists making it then the largest demonstration for gay rights. In the mid-1960s the country had an estimated 300 gay and lesbian activists.
He published a newsletter that became the Washington Blade, now the nation’s oldest LGBTQ weekly newspaper. Kameny and Barbara Gittings, the mother of the movement that demonstrated for the right to be heard at the 1971 American Psychiatric Association meeting. Their panel at the 1972 meeting with a masked psychiatrist using a pseudonym and voice modulator was so impactful that the APA created a panel to determine if homosexuality as a mental illness was based on science or discrimination. In 1973, that classification was removed.
He advised gays and lesbians who were the subject of discharge from federal government service. He identified test cases and referred them to the ACLU, Lambda Legal and other counsel. Slowly, but surely those cases began a process for LGBTQ equality.
His efforts led D.C. to be the first city to overturn its sodomy criminal laws. He helped found the first national LGBTQ organization, the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations. His efforts laid the groundwork for HRC and National LGBTQ Task Force.
After Stonewall in June 1969, he chaired a meeting of NY, Philadelphia and D.C. activists that authorized and helped organize to help remember Stonewall the first New York Pride Parade. He believed that Stonewall could be the movement’s Boston Tea Party. He marched in that 1970 parade holding a picket emblazoned with “Gay Is Good.”
He was the first out person to run for Congress as the D.C. delegate. Money left over from his campaign was used to fund the first gay rights television commercial. In July 1975, he was the first to be advised by the Civil Service Commission that it would eliminate homosexuality as a basis for not hiring or for firing a federal civilian employee. In 1977, he attended the White House’s first meeting with gays and lesbians.
Kameny died on Oct. 11, 2011, National Coming Out Day. He lived to see marriage equality approved in several states. He attended the signing by President Obama of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which enabled gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Kameny is buried in the Congressional Cemetery. On his tombstone is inscribed “Gay Is Good.” Over 70,000 of his documents are in the Library of Congress and picket signs from the pioneering demonstrations are housed in the Smithsonian Institution.
On May 21 LGBTQ national organizations gather in front of the Supreme Court. One hundred activists will each hold a candle for his 100th birthday. Fifteen national leaders will engage in picketing similar to the 1965 picketing at the White House and Independence Hall. They will honor Frank Kameny; celebrate the 10th anniversary of marriage equality (Obergefell v Hodges, 2015); and push back on those who would attempt to render us invisible, deny our history and undermine our equality. We will remember the nation’s loss when it fired a Harvard Ph.D. in astronomy because of his status as a homosexual. History repeats itself. This month the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the federal government to terminate transgender servicemembers solely because of their sexual orientation. How far we have come. How much farther we have to travel.
Malcolm Lazin is the national chair, Kameny 100. He is the executive director, LGBT History Month and executive producer of three LGBTQ documentaries including Gay Pioneers. He was an adjunct professor of LGBT History and Rights at New College of Florida. www.kameny100.org.
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