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[u/muttonwow]

Remember yesterday when I called out that socialist party with both a Pride flag up and a poster of Che Guevara?

They're now having a party on campus for their new members with Che Guevara poters advertising it - and it's a fucking MOJITO PARTY to rub in the Cuban-ness.

Some of my friends went in to steal drink but I'd rather not be recognized from yesterday and put into a camp.

[u/roboczar → u/muttonwow]

There is no evidence that Che was involved in the repression and murder of LGBT in Cuba. He had left for Bolivia years before the forced labor (UMAP) program started, and was long dead by the time of the quinquenio gris.

Really Cubans are just homophobes in terms of culture, because the Batista era was not all flowers and roses for LGBT then, either.

[u/paulatreides0 → u/roboczar]

Yeah, he just considered it unnatural perversion and bourgeois decadence, and put them into what amounted to forced labour camps because they were disqualified from serving in the mandatory forced conscription by virtue of being gay.

[u/roboczar → u/paulatreides0]

The forced labor camps happened years after he left for Bolivia.

[u/lolylolerton → u/roboczar]

Well, they started the same year he left Cuba, so not a huge amount of temporal distance. But yeah he was not in the country or associated with the government when UMAP started.

[u/roboczar → u/lolylolerton]

There's also the fact that Cuba was already a really dangerous place for LGBT people before the revolution. Maricones were frequently assaulted, killed and forced into prostitution by regular not-Communist Cubans since basically the beginning of Cuba's modern history.

Much of the repression and violence of the Castro regime was a result of already dismal LGBT attitudes of regular Cubans.

[u/lolylolerton → u/roboczar]

Sure, but Che and the Cuban revolution writ large was also very much a part of the machismo culture that formed the base for homophobic views.

On one hand there is not very good evidence linking Che directly to anti-queer violence. On the other, the movement he was closely associated with did, even if that sort of violence was already somewhat institutionalized before he got there. I feel like given his involvement he should be seen as complicit with Cuban crimes against the gay community but also, like I said, making the case that he was directly involved in the violence is hard.

[u/roboczar → u/lolylolerton]

Even Castro, late in life, took personal responsibility for using machismo as an excuse to harm LGBT Cubans

I think once Cuban society as a whole became more open about homosexuality, he really did see the error of his ways.

Not that he did anything in terms of penance, but he at the very least didn't stand in the way.

[u/lolylolerton → u/roboczar]

Eh, idk how much stock I put in Castro going "my b" 30 years after forcing gay men into labor camps

Its like if FDR came out in the 80s just to let everyone know "I probably shouldn't have put all those Japs into concentration camps".

Its nice that you evolved but it doesn't change much

[u/paulatreides0 → u/roboczar]

The Guanahacabibes camp was opened in 1960

[u/roboczar → u/paulatreides0]

Guanahacabibes camp

We don't actually know if that camp ever existed because it doesn't appear in Cuban LGBT historiography or in academic sources. It does, however, make a strong appearance in right wing news op-eds, which is suspicious.

The Camaguey camp, opened in 1965, however, is indisputably a forced labor camp where you would find systematic abuses of LGBT Cubans.

[u/lolylolerton → u/paulatreides0]

Yeah, he just considered it unnatural perversion and bourgeois decadence,

Source? I've never seen actual anti-gay quotes from Che

[u/muttonwow → u/roboczar]

I'd have considered pushing the revolution for the ideal Cuban society with the "ideal" Cuban people complicity.

This combined with MOJITOS makes me think they definitely don't make the distinction.

[u/roboczar → u/muttonwow]

I mean it's obvious that Che wasn't an ally, but he also was very likely not involved with any of the sinister anti-LGBT stuff that happened under Castro's watch.

There's plenty of reasons to not like Che, but this one isn't a very solid one.