The Cuban Time Capsule: The Case For Modernization Theory In Lgbt Equality

In the wake of ascension of a new presidency under Miguel Díaz-Canel, 2018 welcomed Cuba as the latest Latin American country to discuss legal approval of gay marriage as drafts for a new constitution called the Magna Carta were announced to be put to a referendum later this year. Such drafts oversee official recognition of private property for the first time in decades, a step ushering Cuba into a liberalized global order where until very recently, the island remained an anachronistic relic of the Cold War, paralyzed by isolationism and ideological antagonism. But this is not the first advance of the LGBT movement in the country. Change in the field of gay rights has been underway for over a decade, especially since Raul Castro’s assumption of the presidency in 2006, succeeding his brother, Fidel Castro. A prominent figure in the Castro family, Mariela Castro, has spearheaded progress in the LGBT movement by founding the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) and has lobbied the issue since 2007. The initiative made possible “government funded campaigns to fight homophobia and transphobia aimed at prevention of HIV and AIDS.” In effect, Cuba’s gay-friendly policies have made it a popular destination in “gay tourism,” symbolizing how this tolerance is consistent with its long-awaited welcoming of cosmopolitanism.

Such circumstances are quite striking compared to the 1970s backdrop of LGBT treatment in Cuba, where gay men were regularly harassed, forced into exile, banned from jobs, and sent for “re-education” at labor camps.footnoteRef:5 HIV positive gays were ostracized from society and quarantined, and homosexual acts were classified as a crime until 1979.footnoteRef:6 There is no doubt that Cuba has made significant progress in the name of LGBT equality, but the reality is that “the country still operates under constructs such as traditional male roles and beliefs about masculine identity, especially machismo.” Nevertheless, CENESEX has fostered a movement that strives to dismantle deeply entrenched norms surrounding masculinity in the island by implementing a strategy to combat stigma and “chip away at social constructs contributing to discrimination.

Within this time period, massive economic overhauls took place in an effort to modernize the Cuban system. Most notably, Raul Castro and the Sixth Party Congress Agreements of 2011 attempted to update the Cuban economic model by means of “expansion of the non-state sector and recognition of the market.” Such efforts were a last-ditch scramble to pick up the pieces caused by a severe Cuban economic depression spurred by the 1991 Soviet Collapse, whose tremors were still being felt by the island well into the new millennium. At around the time that Raul opened the economy to private investment and entrepreneurialism, Fidel Castro made a famous public statement where he recognized the injustices he incurred upon gays in Cuba, taking personal responsibility for the persecution suffered after the 1959 Revolution.

Such recent developments pose an inevitable question: what could have spurred about this massive shift in the legal attitude and public opinion toward the Cuban LGBT community? One answer lies in “modernization theory,” which posits that there are certain requisites or thresholds in terms of socioeconomic development that pave the way for democracy to take root. When applied to legislation on homosexuality, modernization theory maintains that “economic liberalization yields LGBT equality.” The theory upholds that economic liberalization and its characteristic presence of a market coincides with a certain valuation of cultural individualism, which “provides crucial ingredients for the rise and legitimation of same-sex sexuality.” Furthermore, countries with economic factors such as “industrialization, rising incomes, and urbanization…would lead to more tolerance toward political rights.” Conversely, communist countries characterized by state-controlled command economies are more likely to consider “sexual nonconformity to conflict with the rigid image of humanity and society propagated in the political system,” and label “homosexuality as ‘moral decadence of the bourgeoisie.’” Modernization theory contends that what with economic progressivism and departure from a rigid communist ideology, living conditions improve and aspirations for quality of life rise, forcing “individual autonomy to take precedence” and “an emphasis on individual freedom and growing acceptance of human diversity take hold.”

The overarching goal of this project is to assess the relationship between economic liberalization and advancements within the Cuban LGBT community. In doing so, I will center my analysis around a single social interest within the realm of modernization theory, which asserts that economic development yields a “diversification of interests. By delving into this mode of investigation, this project seeks to address the broad research question: to what extent is economic liberalization necessary for LGBT equality? The Cuban case is indeed an anomaly, an island frozen in a Cold War time capsule that watched idly as the world progressed, only to be thawed decades after Soviet Collapse what with recent efforts at privatization and reintegration into the world stage what with warming US-Cuban relations. Cuba is typically ignored as a subject for study in modernization theory, for the thesis refers to states en route to the teleological end of democracy, with liberalization as its means. Cuban government still rigidly clings to communist ideology, dashing any hopes of democratic evolution, but the principle substance of modernization theory is still worth examining in countries where formal democratization is not foreseeable. The question then becomes: to what extent does economic liberalization in itself expand citizens’ expectations of social equity even in vigorously anti-democratic states? In confronting this question, I expect that in the years following formal efforts under Raul Castro to economically modernize in 2011, attitudes of discrimination toward the LGBT community in Cuba to decrease, and correspondingly, HIV treatment will be more readily accessible in an environment of newfound tolerance. I will also expect that in the years following 2011, the Cuban economy will be characterized more by a greater presence of import-export inclusion of the United States and a growing sector of non-state enterprises. In an effort to test this expectation, I will use as independent variables, indicators of economic progress, including the share of Cuban export-import analysis, the percentage of non-state industries as compared to state-controlled businesses, and GDP per capita for the years 2009 to 2015 according to the Cuban Bureau of Statistics. I will juxtapose this data with populations size estimates of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Cuba as well as data from a survey of perceptions of discrimination toward gays across the provinces. Such figures will account for opinions reflecting prejudice toward MSM by providing frank responses to questions which may inquire whether or not the interviewee agrees with the view that MSM should not occupy management positions in the workplace or should not live under the same roof as a heterosexual person.

In light of recent Cuban boasting of the lowest HIV prevalence rate in the Caribbean, another element worthy of study will account for HIV treatment as an indicator of LGBT tolerance. Using the same economic independent variables as aforementioned, I will compare such data with figures provided by UNAIDS, the total HIV treatment expenditure for MSM as well as reported sentiments of discrimination and resultant avoidance of healthcare and HIV treatment among MSM for fear of stigma. If the results of my study show a steadily rising import-export share of American goods, a greater share of privatized industries, and a rising GDP per capita, Cuba can indeed be characterized as an economically liberalizing country according to these metrics. If population size estimates of MSM in the country in this time period also increase, indicating more widespread open identification, along with declining percentages of survey respondents who admit to discriminatory attitudes toward the LGBT community, my hypothesis that economic modernization engenders gay equality will be supported. Further, if the aforementioned data suggests economic liberalization and coincides with an increasingly larger share of HIV expenditure as well as a lower reported avoidance of HIV treatment for fear of prejudice, my hypothesis will again be corroborated.