A Soviet-era Lada parked on the beach in Caibarién, Cuba, on May 18, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

CAIBARIÉN Cuba — Caibarién is a town on a bay that separates it from Cayo de Santa María, which is located on Cuba’s northern coast. It’s proximity to the city of Santa Clara, which is less than an hour to the south, provided the perfect place to escape “experiencing Cuba” and all that it entails — including a flat tire and dead battery on my rental car on Thursday morning — before returning to the U.S.

The breeze that was blowing off the bay was refreshing. The fish at La Tormenta, a small restaurant on Caibarién’s beach that means “the storm” in Spanish, that I had for lunch was freshly caught and delicious. There were also no visible Cuban police officers or security agents within sight.

It became increasingly clear over the last couple of days the Cuban government decided to place me under surveillance, or at the very least knew where I was and with whom I spoke. The Cuban government will likely never confirm my suspicion if I were to ask, but coincidence is more than simple coincidence in a country with little tolerance of public criticism of the government and/or those who represent it.

Tuesday afternoon was the first time I realized the Cuban government may have decided to place me under surveillance.

I called Nelson Gandulla, president of the Cuban Federation of LGBTI Rights, an independent LGBT advocacy group, shortly after noon from the street to confirm our meeting at his home in the city of Cienfuegos that we scheduled for 3 p.m. I called Nelson from the cell phone that I bought from the state-run telecommunications company shortly after I arrived in Cuba on May 2. The conversation lasted less than two minutes and I walked back to the apartment near Santa Clara’s Parque Leoncio Vidal that I had rented on Airbnb from D.C.

I was leaving around 2 p.m. when the woman from whom I was renting the apartment told me someone from the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs called and asked her whether I was a credentialed journalist. The Cuban government granted me a 20-day visa that allowed me to report on LGBT-specific issues in the country. I also received a Cuban press credential from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ International Press Center in Havana.

The situation clearly left the woman from whom I rented the apartment embarrassed, and I honestly felt bad the government had placed her into such an awkward position. She profusely apologized to me several times after I showed her my Cuban press credentials and assured me that I would not have any problems while staying in her family’s home. I left a few minutes later and walked to my car that was parked a couple of blocks away.

Police checked documents after interviewing activist

The hour-long drive from Santa Clara to Cienfuegos, which is on Cuba’s southern coast, was largely uneventful aside from getting lost while leaving the area around Parque Leoncio Vidal. Driving anywhere in the country is another one of those “experiencing Cuba” moments that can certainly leave a lasting impression.

Cuban Federation for LGBTI Rights President Nelson Gandulla speaks to the Washington Blade at his home in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Nelson, who is a doctor, was alone. The only interruptions during our nearly hour-long interview were a handful of telephone calls and a woman who asked him to write her a prescription. Nelson casually pointed out two security agents who passed by his house as he sat in an old wooden rocking chair with his front door open.

The soldiers that I had seen at the intersection when I drove to Nelson’s house were not there when I passed it shortly after 4:30 p.m. Men wearing military uniforms were among local residents as I drove through Cienfuegos, but they are a common sight in Cuba.

I parked alongside a square in Palmira, a town that is roughly 15 minutes north of Cienfuegos, shortly after 5 p.m. to check my email on a public hotspot. One must use cards from the state-run telecommunications company to access it. I sent a couple of emails and texts about my interview with Nelson and started driving again after about 15 minutes.

I was driving through a town near the border of Cienfuegos and Villa Clara Provinces less than 15 minutes later when a police officer on a motorcycle pulled me over. He asked me to where I was driving — Santa Clara I told him — and requested my documents — passport, visa, driver’s license and Cuban press credentials — that I politely and calmly handed to him. The officer took them and walked over to his motorcycle. He spoke to someone over the radio before writing something down on a piece of paper. The officer walked back to my car a few minutes later, handed my documents back to me and said that I could leave.

The border between Villa Clara and Cienfuegos Provinces in Cuba on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Back in Santa Clara, I began to notice a white police car (patrulla in Cuban Spanish) that was parked near the corner of Parque Leoncio Vidal that was closest to my apartment. I took particular note of its location in the morning and at night when I walked to the park to check my email on a public hotspot.

Coincidence?

I’m a curious and somewhat defiant person, so I decided to stare into police officers’ eyes on Wednesday when I saw them. It was an admittedly self-serving attempt to convince myself that they know that I know the government decided to place me under surveillance.

A white patrol car was once again parked along the edge of Parque Leoncio Vidal that was closest to my apartment on early Thursday morning when I was walking home from a party that Mariela Castro’s organization, the National Center for Sexual Education, organized as part of its International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia commemorations. There were two officers leaning on the car smoking cigarettes. I walked past them and said, “Good evening” to them in Spanish. They looked at me incredulously. I chuckled and called them “idiots” in Spanish under my breath as I walked home.

A white patrol car was parked in the same area on Thursday morning when I walked through the park to exchange some U.S. dollars into Cuban pesos at a government-owned currently exchange house. It was not there when I returned to my apartment about half an hour later.

The idea of “experiencing Cuba” during the 16 days that I was working in and traveling through the country will continue to evoke laughter, resignation, frustration and a variety of other emotions long after I have returned to D.C. The idea the Cuban government likely placed me under surveillance — however absurd the reason may have been — is a clear reminder the country’s human rights record remains a very serious problem that should not be ignored.

Hatzel Vela in Havana on May 14, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Hatzel Vela, who is a reporter for WPLG, a South Florida television station, and photojournalist Brian Ely have been based in Havana since January.

Vela — who was a reporter at WJLA from 2012-2014 — and Ely must return to the U.S. once a month as part of the agreement that WPLG has with the Cuban government. Vela told the Washington Blade on May 17 during a telephone interview from Havana that he is hopeful WPLG will be able to open a permanent bureau on the Communist island.

“That is our biggest hope,” said Vela. “We are hoping that eventually this becomes a permanent post where WPLG Local 10 can have a bureau and can report live here on the island.”

“But for now we are very appreciative of what we have,” he added.

Vela interviewed Mariela Castro last month

Vela — who was born in Nicaragua and grew up in Miami — has reported extensively on Cuba since then-President Obama in 2014 announced the U.S. would begin the process of normalizing relations with the Communist country.

Vela spent more than two weeks traveling across Cuba for a series of stories that aired on WPLG in 2015. Pope Francis’ visit to Cuba in September 2015, Obama’s trip to the island in March 2016 and former Cuban President Fidel Castro’s death late last year are among the stories that Vela has covered.

Vela noted to the Blade that he and Ely arrived in Havana “a couple of days before” Obama ended the so-called “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached U.S. soil without a visa to remain in the country a become legal residents after a year. Vela was able to have a “one-on-one” interview with Josefina Vidal of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, who led the Cuban delegation in the negotiations to normalize relations with the U.S., hours after Obama ended the regulation that the Cuban government strongly opposed.

“It’s actually an interesting story,” Vela told the Blade, recalling his Vidal interview and coverage of the end of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy. “We get here. It was all low key because we wanted to do a big kick-off with a whole we’re in Cuba temporarily, living here, reporting here and then the end of ‘wet foot, dry foot’ occurs to our surprise.”

Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues as director of the National Center for Sexual Education, sat down with Vela late last month for an exclusive interview. He has also sat down with Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White, and other high profile critics of the Cuban government who live in Cuba.

Freedom House in its 2016 report notes Cuba “has the most repressive environment for the media in the Americas.”

Maykel González, an independent journalist and LGBT rights advocate, said authorities detained him for three days last October while covering the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in the city of Baracoa. Reports indicate authorities arrested González last month in the city of Santa Clara while he reported on the case of a student who was expelled from a local university.

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, leads an LGBT march through Havana on May 13, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Vela said he has “received some negative” reaction from Cuban exiles in Miami. He pointed out the majority of the feedback to his reporting that he has received has been positive.

“A lot of folks are interested in wanting to know what’s happening inside the island, whether it’s good or bad,” said Vela. “People want to be able to see physically what’s Cuba looks like now: The buildings, the places, the sense, the stuff they remember as children they can now see for themselves.”

“It’s exile people who criticize us for being here,” he added. “But we feel it is important to be here because we need to be here to document what’s happening at what we think is an important part or phase in Cuba history.”

‘Every day you learn something new’

Vela told the Blade the government bureaucracy and “the culture of not being open to press as we have it in America” is the biggest challenge that journalists who work in Cuba face. He said the opportunity to meet Cubans and “see the challenges they face” is the most rewarding part of his work on the Communist island.

“It’s something that you don’t see in America and you quickly learn how we should not take things for granted,” said Vela. “Every day you learn something new.”

Vela also pointed out that Cubans frequently joke the way things happen in their country “may not make sense, but it’s Cuba.”

“It’s Cuba,” he joked.

Vela also told the Blade the fact that he is Latino, grew up in Miami and is part of the LGBT community adds to his ability to report on Cuba.

“It’s an added bonus,” he said. “I have a perspective that probably other journalists don’t, so I can see a wider range of stories and pick up on issues that maybe other journalists cannot.”

Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights President Nelson Gandulla speaks exclusively to the Washington Blade at his home in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Nelson Gandulla, president of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights, told the Washington Blade on May 16 during an exclusive interview at his home on the outskirts of the city of Cienfuegos that three security officials interrogated him for two and a half hours last December.

Gandulla told the Blade the interrogation took place on Dec. 10 — International Human Rights Day that commemorates the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 — in Cienfuegos, which is roughly three hours southeast of Havana on Cuba’s southern coast.

Gandulla said he had just returned from Switzerland and Spain where he participated in a U.N. forum and met with several officials. Gandulla also criticized Mariela Castro, director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, while he was in Europe.

The interrogation about which Gandulla spoke to the Blade took place 15 days after Mariela Castro’s uncle, former Cuban President Fidel Castro, died. His ashes were interred at Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the city of Santiago on Dec. 4.

The grave of former Cuban President Fidel Castro at Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago, Cuba, on May 8, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Gandulla, who is a doctor, said the authorities also threatened to rescind his medical license and prevent him from leaving Cuba.

“I was accused of being a worm, a mercenary,” he told the Blade. “They told me that I was an employee of the CIA and that they could also accuse me of the crime of illicit misappropriation of funds and economic activity.”

Gandulla accused of having ‘clandestine Internet network’

Gandulla said he was waiting to pass through immigration at Havana’s José Martí International Airport on Jan. 9 in order to board a flight to Panama City’s Tocumen International Airport when security agents “pulled me out of the line” and said he was not allowed to leave the country. Gandulla was to have flown from Panama City to the Colombian city of Cartagena in order to attend a workshop organized by Caribe Afirmativo, an LGBT advocacy group, that focused on documenting human rights abuses.

Gandulla told the Blade he and his partner returned to Cienfuegos two days later. He said they were arrested when they asked local immigration officials why he was prevented from leaving the country.

Gandulla said authorities took their passports and cell phones and placed his partner in a cell. He told the Blade they accused him of having a “clandestine Internet network” inside his home, even though the only thing he said they found was a DirecTV receiver.

Gandulla said authorities took pictures of his home as they walked through it.

He told the Blade they also had “witnesses” who “showed their discontent” over flyers the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights distributed throughout the country “that talk about the Cuban reality.”

Gandulla had a poster on the outside of his home that described Mariela Castro as a “fraud” when the Blade visited it in 2015.

A poster at the home of Nelson Gandulla, president of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights, in May 2015 describes Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, as a “fraud.” (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

He told the Blade those who criticized the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights flyers in January were “prisoners.”

Gandulla told the Blade authorities fined him the equivalent of $60. His salary is roughly $45 a month.

Gandulla prevented from meeting U.S. activists in Havana

Gandulla said police on May 3 detained his partner because he was working as a journalist without official government credentials. He told the Blade agents interrogated him for two hours and took his camera, cell phone and tripod.

“They wanted to send him to prison for illicit economic activities,” Gandulla told the Blade in an email shortly after the alleged incident took place. “They wanted to say that he receives money from abroad, which is not the case. He has never received money. They threatened him that if they saw him on the street filming or with a camera he would go directly to prison without a trial.”

Gandulla also alleges authorities prevented him from traveling to Havana in order to attend a May 12 meeting with Equality Florida CEO Nadine Smith and other U.S. LGBT advocates.

Gandulla told the Blade he received a summons that ordered him to report to police headquarters in Cienfuegos at 8 a.m. on May 12 for an “interrogation.” The meeting began in Havana at the same time.

Gandulla said the police called him on May 11 and told him he “wasn’t able to go to work” the next day because the director of Cienfuegos’ local health office was going to be visiting. He told the Blade the police also told him he could not leave Cienfuegos province.

Gandulla said a police officer came to his home before then-President Obama visited Cuba in March 2016 and asked whether he “was going to move around Cuba or my province in the coming days.” Gandulla told the Blade he was “publicly admonished in front of his colleagues” last October after he traveled abroad and his salary was reduced by 25 percent for three months.

He said he was unable to work for several months. Gandulla told the Blade he has started working in another office and his salary has been restored.

Persecution ‘worse now’ because group is more visible

He told the Blade that authorities have repeatedly threatened to send him to prison and regularly harass activists who work with his organization. Gandulla also said the Cuban government has placed him under surveillance.

This reporter on May 16 saw four Cuban soldiers standing along the road on which Gandulla’s house is located. Two men who Gandulla described as security agents drove past in motorcycles shortly after the interview began.

A police officer on a motorcycle stopped this reporter while driving on the highway between Cienfuegos and Cuba’s Autopista Nacional roughly an hour after leaving Gandulla’s home.

The police officer asked for this reporter’s passport, visa, driver’s license and Cuban press credentials. He returned to his motorcycle and began speaking to someone through his radio. The police officer wrote something down on a piece of paper before returning to this reporter’s car less than 10 minutes later and allowing him to drive away after returning his documents.

Gandulla has criticized Mariela Castro in previous interviews with the Blade and other international media outlets. He told the Blade the government’s persecution against him “is worse now because we and the foundation are more visible.”

“We are doing things,” said Gandulla.

“We don’t have any type of legal recognition from the Cuban authorities,” he added, referring to the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights and other groups and advocates who are not affiliated with the National Center for Sexual Education. “They have turned us into illegal people inside of Cuba and describe us as dissidents.”

Gandulla: Mariela Castro promotes Cuba as ‘LGBT paradise’

Gandulla spoke to the Blade a day before Mariela Castro led a march in the city of Santa Clara that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Gender Rights Maryland Executive Director Dana Beyer, New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Church, are among the more than 2,000 people who took part in an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia march in Havana that Mariela Castro led. The National Center for Sexual Education, its supporters and independent LGBT rights advocates organized other events across the country that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, leads an LGBT march through Havana on May 13, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Fidel Castro in 2010 apologized for the work camps during an interview with a Mexican newspaper.

Mariela Castro’s supporters frequently point out that Cuba offers free sex-reassignment surgery through its national health care system.

Independent LGBT rights advocates have pointed out that only a few dozen transgender women have undergone the procedure since 2008. Mariela Castro told reporters during a press conference in Havana on May 3 that 35 people — roughly half a dozen a year — have undergone sex-reassignment surgery in Cuba.

Gandulla acknowledged there is more public awareness and “more recognition” of LGBT-specific issues in Cuba because of Mariela Castro’s efforts. He said discrimination based on gender identity and a lack of legal recognition for same-sex couples are among the problems that LGBT Cubans continue to face.

“Mariela Castro’s role is to sell a different image of the community to the world,” Gandulla told the Blade.

“She sells Cuba as an LGBT paradise and everyone knows that this is not the case,” he added. “She wants to whitewash the historic homophobia that has sustained the Cuban revolution for more than 50 years.”

The Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights was scheduled to commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia in Cienfuegos on May 17. Gandulla told Radio y Televisión Martí, a Miami-based radio and television station that broadcasts into Cuba, the organization decided to postpone the event “in order to protect those who were invited and activists.”

Gandulla told the Blade there are few places where LGBT Cubans can gather and talk openly.

“The LGBT community in Cuba is discriminated against every day,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Cuban government in Havana has not returned the Blade’s request for comment on Gandulla’s allegations.

A rainbow flag hangs from the window of an apartment building on Havana’s oceanfront on May 12, 2017. Reports indicate President Trump will roll back the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba later this month. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

HAVANA — President Trump will reportedly roll back the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba this month.

Andrea Mitchell of NBC News on Thursday reported Trump could once again limit travel to the Communist island and tighten trade regulations that former President Obama loosened. Sources told Mitchell it is unlikely Trump will cut diplomatic ties with Cuba or close the U.S. Embassy in Havana that reopened in August 2015.

Mitchell reported Trump would make the announcement in Miami through an executive order that notes Cuba’s human rights record. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — who endorsed Trump during the Republican National Convention — and Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — a Republican who was born in Havana and left Cuba with her family after Fidel Castro came to power in the 1959 Cuban revolution — are among the most vocal critics of the normalization of relations.

Trump last October said he would “reverse” the normalization of relations between the two countries that Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced on Dec. 17, 2014. He later criticized Obama for signing “a very weak agreement” during an interview with a South Florida television station.

The White House earlier this year said it had begun to review the policy.

Newsweek last September reported Trump’s company violated the U.S. embargo against Cuba in 1998 when it spent $68,000 on a trip to the Communist island that focused on exploring business opportunities. An article that Bloomberg published two months earlier notes four of Trump’s associates traveled to Havana in late 2012 or early 2013 to explore “golf-related opportunities” for the Trump Corporation.

“We do not have anything to announce at this time,” a White House spokesperson told the Washington Blade on Friday.

Cuban activist: Trump is ‘Hitler of the 21st century’

Cubans with whom the Blade spoke last month in Havana and other cities across the country said they support the normalization of relations with the U.S.

“We are hoping to unite and hoping to talk about these differences that have existed for all these years,” said Reynaldo, an activist who works with the National Center for Sexual Orientation, which Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues, directs, on May 13 before he and more than 2,000 others took part in a Havana march that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. “It is good for us as Cubans.”

The U.S. and Cuban flags at the Centro Comunitario de Cultura in Santo Domingo, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Isel Calzadilla, coordinator of Las Isabelas, a social and advocacy group for lesbian and bisexual women in the city of Santiago that works with the National Center for Sexual Education, agreed.

She told the Blade last month during an interview that she spent nearly two months in the U.S. last summer.

Calzadilla said she is unsure whether the U.S. would allow her into the country while Trump is president. She also described him as the “Hitler of the 21st century” because of his administration’s foreign and domestic policy.

Damian Pardo, a Cuban American LGBT activist who founded SAVE, a Miami-based advocacy group, told the Blade on Friday that any changes to U.S. policy towards Cuba “will be largely symbolic as an attempt to deliver on a campaign promise to the Cuban American community.”

“The reality is that most of the changes geared towards engagement are difficult to roll back and are generally supported by the Cuban American community,” said Pardo.

Mariela Castro criticizes embargo during IDAHOT speech

The Cuban government on May 20 sharply rebuked Trump’s Cuban Independence Day statement that, among other things, noted “cruel despotism” and “unjust persecution” on the island.

“The Cuban people deserve a government that peacefully upholds democratic values, economic liberties, religious freedoms and human rights,” it reads. “My administration is committed to achieving that vision.”

Nelson Gandulla, president of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights, an independent advocacy group that is based in the city of Cienfuegos, claims authorities last month prevented him from meeting with Gender Rights Maryland Executive Director Dana Beyer and other U.S. LGBT activists in Havana. Independent LGBT activists told the Blade the son of a Cuban Interior Ministry official received a fine of less than $2 after he assaulted seven gay men earlier this week in the city of Cárdenas.

Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz — an opponent of ending the embargo who criticized Obama’s decision to normalize relations between the two countries — told participants of the World OutGames Miami Human Rights Conference in Miami Beach, Fla., on May 27 that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s assertion the U.S. may have to set aside human rights in the name of promoting U.S. interests abroad is “morally repugnant and unacceptable.” Americans with whom the Blade spoke in Cuba last month said they support the lifting of the embargo — which Cubans describe as el bloqueo — as part of the normalization of relations.

“The U.S. blockade is a tragedy,” Ruth Eisenberg of Adams Morgan told the Blade before she took part in the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia march in Havana on May 13. “It has done such harm to this country and to the people of this country.”

“My impression is that whatever the relations between the countries are, the people of this country want relationships with Americans,” she added. “They want trade.”

A billboard at an intersection in Cienfuegos, Cuba, highlights opposition to the U.S. embargo. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Pardo told the Blade the embargo is not “the real issue for the Cuban American community.”

“Instead, it is making economic concessions tied to the embargo without any betterment of basic civil rights for the Cuban people,” he said. “Many in the community do not support conceding this leverage without greater cooperation from the regime to support basics freedoms, like those of speech and assembly without intimidation and incarceration.”

Mariela Castro and the National Center for Sexual Education have highlighted their opposition to the embargo in previous International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia events. Mariela Castro did so again on May 13 when she spoke to her supporters who gathered at a pavilion in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood after the march.

“Down with the embargo,” she proclaimed.

Mariela Castro speaks at the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia observance in Havana on May 13, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito was among those on the stage with Mariela Castro as she spoke.

Mark-Viverito acknowledged to the Blade before the march began there are “elements” who want to reverse the process of normalizing relations between the U.S. and Cuba. She added, however, there is “no turning back at this point.”

“The normalization process that President Obama started is really opening up that door in a way that you cannot close it,” Mark-Viverito told the Blade.

A spokesperson for the Cuban government in Havana did not return the Blade’s request for comment.

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito attends an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia march in Havana on May 13, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

President Trump on June 16, 2017, announced the U.S. will reinstate travel and trade restrictions with Cuba. His announcement does not completely roll back the normalization of relations that then-President Obama announced in 2014. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The directive Trump signed at a theater in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood that is named after the leader of a group of Cuban exiles who participated in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 bans individual “people-to-people” trips to the Communist island. It also says Americans who travel to Cuba on organized trips must “engage in a full-time schedule of activities that enhance contact with the Cuban people, support civil society in Cuba, or promote the Cuban people’s independence from Cuban authorities.”

The directive requires Americans who travel to Cuba to “keep full and accurate records of all transactions related to authorized travel” for at least five years. It allows the Treasury Department to audit them.

The Associated Press reported the directive also prohibits U.S. financial transactions with hotels, restaurants, stores and other entities the Cuban military owns.

“Our policy will seek a much better deal for the Cuban people and for the United States of America,” said Trump. “We do not want U.S. dollars to prop up a military monopoly that exploits and abuses the citizens of Cuba.”

The directive also mandates Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to “initiate a process to adjust current regulations regarding transactions with Cuba” within 30 days.

Trump last month traveled to Saudi Arabia, which is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death. The Trump administration signed an agreement that includes $110 billion for a “Saudi-funded defense purchase.”

Trump in April praised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s highly controversial crackdown on drugs. Trump has not publicly commented on the ongoing crackdown of gay men in Chechnya.

Cuban government: Trump announcement favors ‘extreme minority’ in Fla.

Trump signed the directive more than two years after then-President Obama announced the U.S. would normalize relations with Cuba.

The directive notes the administration’s support of the U.S. embargo against Cuba, even though media reports indicate Trump’s company and four of his associates violated it in 1998 and in late 2012 or early 2013.

The U.S. Embassy in Havana that reopened in 2015 will not close. American airlines and cruise ships will still be able to serve the Communist island.

A cruise ship docked in Havana on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“The outcome of the last administration’s executive action has been only more repression and a move to crush the peaceful, democratic movement,” said Trump. “Therefore, effective immediately, I am canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba.”

Trump also said the directive was the fulfillment of a promise that he made during his presidential campaign.

“Last year, I promised to be a voice against repression in our region — remember, tremendous oppression — and a voice for the freedom of the Cuban people,” he said.

“You heard that pledge,” added Trump to applause. “You went out and you voted. And here I am like I promised — like I promised.” 

Vice President Pence, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), U.S. Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) and Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta are among those who joined Trump at Friday’s announcement.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.) are among those who have criticized Trump’s directive. Others maintain it will harm Cuba’s growing private sector that is increasingly dependent upon tourism.

.@POTUS's Cuba policy is not about human rights or security. If it were, then why is he dancing with the Saudis and selling them weapons?

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 16, 2017

The Cuban government in a statement said Trump’s speech was “laden with hostile rhetoric that harkens back to the times of open confrontation with our country.” It also reiterated its call for an end to the embargo that has been in place since 1962.

“The American president, once again poorly advised, makes decisions that favor the political interests of an extreme minority of Cuban origin in the state of Florida,” reads the statement.

Cubans ‘do not trust’ the Trump administration

Opponents of the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba routinely point out the country’s human rights record.

Independent activists who publicly criticize Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues as director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education, say authorities routinely harass and detain them. They have told the Washington Blade in recent interviews in Cuba and the U.S. the government’s crackdown against them has increased since the normalization of relations between the two countries.

Maykel González, a gay journalist and activist from Sagua la Grande, a small city that is located in the province of Villa Clara, says authorities detained him for three days last October while reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in eastern Cuba.

Nelson Gandulla, president of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights, told the Washington Blade last month he was prevented from traveling to Havana to meet with Gender Rights Maryland Executive Director Dana Beyer and other U.S. advocates. A police officer pulled over this reporter roughly an hour after interviewing Gandulla at his home in the city of Cienfuegos and checked his press visa and other documents.

Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights President Nelson Gandulla speaks exclusively to the Washington Blade at his home in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

“The enforcement of the 12 categories will hinder travel by Americans who value travel and resent any regulation concerning a private citizen’s perceived right to travel,” he said, referring to the 12 categories under which Americans can legally travel to Cuba. “But it will also force a carrot and stick paradigm in U.S.-Cuba relations where unrestricted travel is a ‘goodie’ for negotiation and continued human rights abuses will be met with a loss of incentives.” 

Victor Manuel Dueñas is an independent activist in the town of Santo Domingo who is among those behind a campaign that urges Cuban lawmakers to discuss whether to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

He told the Blade on Friday that many LGBT Cubans had hoped gay Americans would have bolstered Cuba’s growing tourism industry. Dueñas said most Cubans “do not trust the current U.S. administration much.”

Corriente Martiana, an organization that works independently of the Cuban government, in an open letter to Trump on June 1 wrote “changes in Cuba must come from its own people and not from abroad.” Ignacio Estrada, founder of the Cuban League Against AIDS who now lives in Miami, made a similar point to the Blade on Friday.

“[Trump’s] words will not put an end to the Cuban dictatorship,” said Estrada, who is married to Wendy Iriepa, a transgender woman who once worked for the National Center for Sexual Education. “Those who will be applauding him are not those who will be living nor suffering the consequences that the isolation of a nation could have.”

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, leads an LGBT march through Havana on May 13, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A transgender woman takes part in a march in Havana on May 13, 2017, that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. President Trump this month reinstated travel and trade restrictions with Cuba. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Centro Comunitario de Cultura, an LGBT community center, is located in the backyard of Victor Manuel Dueñas, an activist who is among those behind a campaign that urges Cuban lawmakers to discuss whether to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. Dueñas, his partner and several other independent Cuban advocates last month met with Gender Rights Maryland Executive Director Dana Beyer and other U.S. activists in Havana. A homemade centerpiece with the Cuban and U.S. flags was on a table in Dueñas’ backyard on May 16 when I attended his group’s International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia commemoration.

The U.S. and Cuban flags at the Centro Comunitario de Cultura in Santo Domingo, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

The Miami Herald last month reported more than 600,000 Americans visited Cuba in 2016, even though U.S. citizens cannot legally travel to the Communist island for tourism-related purposes. The directive that Trump announced in Miami on June 16 prevents U.S. citizens from spending money at hotels, restaurants and other entities the Cuban military owns.

The new policy requires Americans who travel to Cuba — which is less than 100 miles south of the Florida Keys — to “keep full and accurate records of all transactions related to authorized travel” for at least five years. It also allows the Treasury Department to audit them.

Trump’s directive — which chips away at the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba that then-President Obama announced in 2014 — does not close the U.S. Embassy in Havana and allows American airlines and cruise ship companies to continue serving the Communist island. American citizens are still allowed to bring Cuban rum and cigars back to the U.S.

This new policy is nothing short of insanity.

Trump in no position to lecture Cuba on human rights

Trump framed his directive — which he announced surrounded by Cuban exiles who voted for him — against the backdrop of Cuba’s human rights record.

Independent LGBT rights advocates note the crackdown against them has increased since the U.S. normalized relations with Cuba. They also insist the Cuban government has grown more paranoid since 2014.

Security agents arrested Maykel González, an independent journalist and activist, last October and detained him for three days while reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in the city of Baracoa. Authorities last month prevented Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights President Nelson Gandulla, who is a vocal critic of Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues as director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education, from traveling to Havana in order to meet with Beyer and her U.S. counterparts. The Cuban government likely placed me under surveillance because I spoke with Gandulla and interviewed him at his home in the city of Cienfuegos on May 16.

Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights President Nelson Gandulla speaks exclusively to the Washington Blade at his home in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Trump last month traveled to Saudi Arabia, which, among other things, imposes the death penalty upon those who are found guilty of consensual same-sex sexual relations, and signed an agreement that includes a $110 billion defense deal. He has also praised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on drugs that has left thousands of people dead.

Russian President Vladimir Putin — who Trump has repeatedly applauded in spite of the Kremlin’s efforts to interfere with last year’s presidential election — has continued to target critics of his country’s government, independent journalists and LGBT rights advocates, among others. Trump has yet to publicly criticize the crackdown against gay men in Chechnya.

Media reports that emerged last fall indicate Trump’s company and four of his associates violated the U.S. embargo against Cuba in 1998 and in late 2012 or early 2013.

Hatred of Cuban government should not define U.S. policy

One can feel sympathy towards Cuban Americans and their families who felt they had no choice but to flee their homeland after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. One can also feel sympathy towards exiles in Miami who are victims of human rights abuses the Castros perpetuated against them. Hatred and resentment of their homeland’s government — which one can categorize as the manifestation of a bitter family feud that has gone on for nearly six decades — has no place in U.S. foreign policy and should not be used as justification to explicitly prohibit Americans from traveling to the island.

The Cuban people deserve much better from their own government and from the U.S. Trump’s directive not only harms them, but bolsters the very government that it publicly seeks to punish. This insane new policy is an unfortunate step backwards.

Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, takes part in a march in Havana on May 13, 2017, that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. Embassy in Havana flies a rainbow flag in honor of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia in 2016. A Cuban activist who works closely with Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, has refused to attend an event at the embassy in response to the expulsion of two Cuban diplomats from the U.S. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba)

A Cuban activist has refused to attend an event at the U.S. Embassy in Havana over the expulsion of two of his country’s diplomats from the U.S.

Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, a gay Cuban blogger who writes under the pen name Paquito el de Cuba, received an invitation to participate in an online chat about the use of technology to combat gender-based violence.

The event is scheduled to take place at the embassy on Thursday.

Rodríguez on Wednesday told a Cuban embassy staffer in an email that the expulsion of the two diplomats from the Cuban Embassy in D.C. “makes it impossible for me to accept (the invitation) this time.” Rodríguez wrote to the staffer hours after news of the diplomats’ expulsion broke.

“Nevertheless, I would like to share with you my sincere hope that both countries and peoples can continue to improve bilateral relations, based on the exchange of experiences and reciprocal learning — that is so important for social activism and other issues of common interest that we are developing as citizens — as well as maintaining the principles of being good neighbors and respecting Cuba’s sovereignty and independence,” said Rodríguez, according to a copy of the email the Washington Blade and other media outlets received.

Francisco Rodríguez Cruz in Havana. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Associated Press on Wednesday reported five American diplomats who worked at the embassy began suffering “unexplained” hearing loss last fall after they arrived in Havana.

U.S. officials told the Associated Press that some of the diplomats returned to the U.S. because their symptoms had grown “so severe.” The Associated Press reported American officials later concluded the diplomats “had been attacked with an advanced sonic weapon that operated outside the range of audible sound and had been deployed either inside or outside their residences” in Havana.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert on Wednesday confirmed the U.S. on May 23 expelled two Cuban diplomats who were working at the Cuban Embassy in Northwest Washington.

She told reporters during a press briefing the symptoms from which the U.S. diplomats were suffering were “not life-threatening.” Nauert did not provide additional details about their condition.

“The Cuban government has a responsibility and an obligation under the Geneva Convention to protect our diplomats,” she said. “So that is part of the reason why this is such a major concern of ours, why we take this so seriously, and in addition to the protection and security of Americans.”

The Associated Press notes the Cuban government closely monitors American diplomats who work in the country. LGBT activists who publicly criticize Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues on the Communist island, have told the Washington Blade they have been placed under surveillance, harassed and even detained.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry on Wednesday in a statement said the U.S. Embassy in Havana and the State Department on Feb. 17 “informed” it of “the alleged occurrence of incidents that caused illnesses of some” embassy officials and their family members.

The statement describes the expulsion of the two Cuban diplomats from the U.S. as an “unjustified and unfounded decision.” The Cuban Foreign Ministry also said it has launched “an exhaustive investigation” into the alleged incidents.

“The ministry categorically emphasizes that Cuba has never allowed nor will allow Cuban territory to be used for any action against accredited diplomatic officials or their families, without exception,” reads its statement. “(The ministry) also reiterates its willingness to cooperate in order to clarify this situation.”

Rodríguez participated in U.S. Pride month chat

Former President Obama in 2014 announced the U.S. would normalize relations with Cuba.

The two countries reopened their respective embassies in Havana and Washington in 2015. They will remain open in spite of President Trump’s decision to reinstate travel and trade restrictions with Cuba that he announced in June.

U.S. embassy officials regularly meet with Cuban activists who work independently of Mariela Castro. Rodríguez, who works closely with Mariela Castro and her organization, the National Center for Sexual Education, on June 28 visited the embassy and participated in an online chat the State Department organized around Pride month.

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, speaks at a press conference in Havana on May 3, 2017. Francisco Rodríguez Cruz is a gay activist and blogger who works closely with Mariela Castro and her organization. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, takes part in a march in Havana on May 13, 2017, that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Perry’s husband, Phillip De Blieck, and Rev. Hector Gutiérrez, an MCC elder from the Mexican city of Guadalajara, joined Perry in his suite in the hotel that overlooks the Cuban capital’s oceanfront promenade and the Florida Straits. Perry spoke with the Blade hours after he and De Blieck rode alongside Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who directs the country’s National Center for Sexual Education, in a 1950s-era car during a march that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

“I don’t ever want us in America to think we’re better than other people because,” said Perry.

More than 2,000 people took part in the march the National Center for Sexual Education, which is known by the Spanish acronym CENESEX, organized.

Perry told the Blade he received a standing ovation from the more than 5,000 people who attended a CENESEX gala at Havana’s Karl Marx Theater on May 12. He said CENESEX honored him with what he described as an international human rights award.

“I’m deeply honored by that,” said Perry. “I am a little boy from North Florida.”

Perry, 77, met Mariela Castro in 2015 when he traveled to Cuba for the first time. He told the Blade his father — a former bootlegger who owned a tobacco farm — visited the island in the 1930s.

“That was a part of my speech last night,” said Perry, referring to the CENESEX gala.

Perry founded MCC in Los Angeles in 1968. It now has more than 200 congregations around the world.

MCC has congregations in Havana and in the cities of Santa Clara and Matanzas. Perry noted MCC provided housing to gay men who were among the more than 100,000 Cuban refugees — “Marielitos” in Spanish — who arrived in the U.S. during the 1980 Mariel boatlift after then-President Fidel Castro allowed them to leave the country.

Some of the “Marielitos” who arrived in the U.S. were criminals or people with mental illness who Fidel Castro had released from prisons and institutions.

“A lot of them weren’t good people as I can testify because we housed 10,000 of them in MCC houses all over the country,” Perry told the Blade. “Scripture tells me I am to help aliens. You’re an alien one time, Hebrew scripture told the Jews. So as a Christian I believe that, so we housed people.”

Mariela Castro is ‘just like the Kennedys’

Fidel Castro, who was Mariela Castro’s uncle, in the years after the 1959 revolution that brought him to power sent gay men and others to work camps known by the Spanish acronym UMAPs.

Cuba in 1979 decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.

The Cuban government until 1993 forcibly quarantined people with HIV/AIDS in state-run sanitaria. Fidel Castro, who died last November, apologized for the UMAPs in 2010 during an interview with a Mexican newspaper.

“He apologized finally,” Perry told the Blade.

Mariela Castro over the last decade has spearheaded LGBT-specific issues on the Communist island, with her supporters noting the country since 2008 has provided free sex-reassignment surgeries through its national health care system. They also highlight Mariela Castro, who is a member of the Cuban Parliament, in 2013 voted against a proposal to add sexual orientation to Cuba’s labor law because it did not include gender identity.

Mariela Castro earlier this year during an interview with Hatzel Vela, a Havana-based reporter for the South Florida television station WPLG, that her father is “supportive” of her LGBT-specific work. Perry noted to the Blade that Mariela Castro’s mother, Vilma Espín, who was the president of the Cuban Federation of Women, taught her at a young age to respect gay men.

“Her mother . . . instilled that into her,” said Perry.

Independent Cuban activists with whom the Blade has spoken say the face harassment and even arrest if they publicly criticize Mariela Castro or her father’s government.

Perry told the Blade in response to a question about Cuba’s human rights record that he wants “to be able to talk” about human rights.

He said CENESEX “never asked to look at” the speech he delivered at the organization’s gala. Perry also told the Blade that Mariela Castro “has problems when people threaten her family,” noting the CIA tried to kill Fidel Castro and sponsored the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

“She is just like the Kennedys,” said Perry, referring to Mariela Castro. “People have tried to kill her uncle and her name is Castro. She can’t even go to South Florida really. She would probably be hurt and I understand that.”

“There are emotions about the Castro family to this day as we Americans know.”

Perry sharply criticizes U.S. embargo against Cuba

Perry’s first visited Cuba roughly six months after then-President Obama began the process of normalizing relations between the U.S. and the Communist island. President Trump in June announced the reinstatement of travel and trade restrictions with Cuba.

Perry repeatedly criticized the U.S. embargo against Cuba during the interview.

He said a Cuban pastor told him his congregation couldn’t buy Bibles, so it broke it up into separate books and checked them out to his parishioners. Perry told the Blade parishioners would receive another book once they returned the one they had checked out.

“What I saw when I came here, I could not believe what that embargo has done to this country,” he said. “We have been awful.”

A sign against the U.S. embargo against Cuba at an intersection in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on May 11, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

“They have never seen a more erratic president,” said Perry. “The Cuban people are afraid of him. They are worried more about what is going to happen now with the embargo, with the opening we have started.”

Perry said Mariela Castro told him that Fidel Castro once told the Cuban people, “I don’t care if we have to eat grass, no country is going to bully us again.” Perry also said the Cuban people “want their freedom.”

“They love Americans,” he said. “But on the other hand I don’t see any signs about Trump.”

“The government is waiting to see what’s going to happen,” added Perry.

Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, speaks to the Washington Blade on May 13, 2017, in his suite at the Hotel Nacional in Havana. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

From left: Carlos Alejandro Rodríguez and Maykel González on the roof of their apartment building in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, in 2015. Rodríguez and González said they were detained on Sept. 6, 2017, after they tried to interview a local official about Hurricane Irma preparations.(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

CiberCuba, a news website that operates independently of the Cuban government, reported Carlos Alejandro Rodríguez and his partner, Maykel González, were reporting for Periodismo de Barrio, an affiliated online outlet, in the city of Sagua la Grande when the reported incident took place.

Sagua la Grande is a small city in the province of Villa Clara that is located on Cuba’s northern coast. It is roughly 180 miles east-southeast of Havana, the country’s capital.

Rodríguez told the Washington Blade on Thursday during a telephone interview from his home in Sagua la Grande that the vice president of the local Cuban Communist Party was in a bay front neighborhood when he and González were interviewing local residents about their hurricane preparations.

CiberCuba reported Rodríguez and González approached the official and asked her about plans to evacuate the area ahead of Irma. The website said the official declined to answer their questions and authorities detained them a short time later “without an arrest warrant.”

“We were reporting,” Rodríguez told the Blade.

Rodríguez said authorities confiscated his camera and cell phone and brought him and González to a local police station.

CiberCuba reported police stripped searched them and erased videos that González had recorded with his camera. The website also said authorities later returned their belongings to them and “prohibited both reporters from practicing journalism.”

Rodríguez told the Blade authorities detained him and González for six hours.

“She had us detained,” said Rodríguez, referring to the Cuban Communist Party official in Sagua la Grande who declined their request for an interview before they were taken into custody. “It happened to us.”

González, who is also an LGBT rights activist, worked for a government-run radio station until he said the director fired him in August 2016 because he worked with independent media outlets. Security agents last October arrested González in the city of Baracoa while he was reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.

González has also publicly criticized President Raúl Castro and his daughter, Mariela Castro, who spearheads LGBT-specific issues in Cuba as director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education. Rodríguez on Thursday told the Blade authorities continue to target him and González because of this criticism and their work as independent journalists.

The Cuban government issues press credentials and visas, including to this reporter who has reported from the Communist island three times since 2015. González told the Blade after his arrest in Baracoa there is no law that prohibits him and other independent Cuban journalists from working in the country without government-issued credentials.

U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) was part of a delegation that traveled to Cuba last week. The delegation focused on LGBT issues and the country’s private sector. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Center for Democracy in the Americas — a D.C.-based organization that supports U.S. engagement with the Communist island — organized the trip that focused on LGBT issues and Cuba’s growing private sector. It began on Oct. 14 and ended on Tuesday.

Josefina Vidal, who is Cuba’s general director of U.S. affairs, on Tuesday posted pictures to her Twitter account that show her meeting with Takano, Quinn and other members of the delegation at the country’s Foreign Ministry in Havana.

“Honored to receive at the Cuban Foreign Ministry California Congressman Mark Takano and his delegation on a visit to learn Cuba’s (sic) work on LGBT issues,” said Vidal.

Honored to receive @CubaMINREX #California @RepMarkTakano and his delegation on a visit to learn about #Cuba's work on LGBT issues #USCuba pic.twitter.com/5gZarr5XHy

— Josefina Vidal (@JosefinaVidalF) October 17, 2017

The National Center for Sexual Education, a known by the acronym CENESEX that Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues in the country, posted onto its Twitter account a picture of Takano holding a t-shirt.

CENESEX said the delegation met with Deputy Director Manuel Vázquez.

El senador estadounidense Mark Tanako visitó la sede del @cenesex_cuba en esta semana y fue recibido por el subdirector Manuel Vázquez. pic.twitter.com/v82K0v9HYc

— Cenesex (@cenesex_cuba) October 19, 2017

Takano — a Democrat who represents California’s 41st Congressional District that includes the city of Riverside — told the Washington Blade on Wednesday during a telephone interview from California that the delegation did not meet with Mariela Castro because she was out of the country.

Takano said the delegation met with activists who work independently of Mariela Castro and CENESEX. He described them to the Blade as “not hostile to the regime.”

“It’s kind of the same thing what (House Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi calls the inside-outside game about members of Congress and working with outside advocacy groups,” said Takano.

Juana Mora, an independent LGBT rights advocate who is among those who are campaigning in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples in Cuba, on Thursday told the Blade she met with Takano and the other members of his delegation.

“We talked about the community,” she said. “We had dinner with them to talk about the work that we are doing in Cuba.”

Takano told the Blade the delegation met with an official at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. The delegation also visited the Latin American School of Medicine, a medical school in the outskirts of Havana the Cuban government operates.

Takano said he first traveled to Cuba in 2015.

He told the Blade he met Mariela Castro at CENESEX’s offices. Takano said they had “some very constructive dialogue about advancing LGBT equality in both countries and she invited me . . . back.”

“That’s what this trip was about,” he said. “It was about enlarging the points of contacts among LGBT leaders in this country and LGBT leaders in Cuba.”

Cuba has human rights ‘challenges’

Fidel Castro, who was Mariela Castro’s uncle, in the years after the 1959 revolution that brought him to power sent gay men and others to work camps known by the Spanish acronym UMAPs.

Cuba in 1979 decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.

The Cuban government until 1993 forcibly quarantined people with HIV/AIDS in state-run sanitaria. Fidel Castro, who died last November, apologized for the UMAPs in 2010 during an interview with a Mexican newspaper.

Mariela Castro over the last decade has spearheaded LGBT-specific issues on the Communist island, with her supporters noting the country since 2008 has provided free sex-reassignment surgeries through its national health care system. They also highlight Mariela Castro, who is a member of the Cuban Parliament, in 2013 voted against a proposal to add sexual orientation to Cuba’s labor law because it did not include gender identity.

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito was among the more than 2,000 people who took part in an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia march through Havana’s Vedado neighborhood in May that Mariela Castro led. Hundreds of people participated in a second IDAHOT march in the city of Santa Clara that took place a few days later.

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito attends an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia march in Havana on May 13, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“We didn’t speak with any dissidents,” Takano told the Blade. “We did meet with some independent voices, observers who talked about the pluses of how the government deals with LGBTQ people and the minuses.”

“We know there are challenges that Cuba still has with human rights, but our focus was really not on human rights in general,” he added. “Our focus was specifically on LGBTQ and ways in which the lives of LGBTQ people in Cuba could be improved and ways in which the government was doing that. We also saw people in the entrepreneur space too.”

Takano criticizes Trump’s Cuba policy

The delegation traveled to Cuba roughly four months after President Trump reinstated of travel and trade restrictions with Cuba that the Obama administration lifted.

The Trump administration late last month announced a 60 percent reduction of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Havana after mysterious sonic attacks against at least 22 diplomats. The White House earlier this month expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from the U.S.

“I am saddened that the momentum of the normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States has been slowed by recent events involving American diplomats and what appears to be some sort of misery sustained by a phenomenon that is not well understood,” Takano told the Blade. “I have not seen or heard of any conclusive evidence that squarely puts this on the hands of the Cuban government.”

Takano noted Trump this week “did make an accusation that he believes the Cuban government is behind this.” He told the Blade “It seems as though the White House began to walk back those comments and seems to justify the reduction in American embassy staffing and expulsion of Cuban diplomats that’s predicated on the idea that Cuba is not able to keep American diplomats safe.”

“My sense is the Cubans are very much eager to cooperate in unprecedented ways,” said Takano.

A rainbow flag hangs from the window of an apartment building on Havana’s oceanfront on May 12, 2017. A woman has been granted custody of her late daughter’s three children who she is raising with her same-sex partner. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A three-judge panel in Havana ruled in favor of Eumnice Violeta Cardoso Pérez on Oct. 19.

Cardoso’s daughter, Vioem Karen Díaz Cardoso, gave birth to two girls and a boy when she was married to Guillermo Gómez Vera.

A copy of the judges’ ruling the Washington Blade obtained on Wednesday indicates the couple’s daughters are 8- and 7-years-old and their son is 5-years-old. It also notes Cardoso’s partner is the children’s godmother.

Gómez and Díaz divorced after their son was born.

Díaz died from lymphatic cancer on March 21, 2016. The ruling notes Cardoso and her partner helped Díaz take care of her children before she passed away.

Cardoso received “temporary guardianship” of the children after her daughter’s death. The states Gómez “neglected” them.

“The children’s maternal grandmother together with their godmother have cared for and provide for the children with care, dedication and love,” reads the ruling. “[They] have such a bond with them that they view them as if they were their children.”

The ruling states Gómez later started a “new family” with another woman. It also notes he asked whether his father, who lives in Ecuador and spends roughly two weeks in Cuba each year, could have permanent custody of the children.

“The defendant since the children’s mother’s death has not been in charge of creating conditions to take care of their children, has not fostered a climate of acceptance of his children in his new family,” reads the ruling.

The ruling also states Díaz on her deathbed said her mother should have custody of her children.

“It is in their best interests that their maternal grandmother should receive guardianship and custody of them,” it says.

The ruling also states the children should have “regular communication” with their father.

The Cuban constitution currently defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Acepto, a group that advocates for marriage rights for same-sex couples in Cuba, on Jan. 20 wrote on its Facebook page that the ruling is “possibly” the first time the “legitimacy of a non-heteronormative family” has been legally recognized on the Communist island.

The ruling refers to the Cuba’s Family Code that states the need to ensure “children’s well-being and optimal development, while also providing the family with all necessary protection as the fundamental unit of society.” Acepto on Monday applauded the judges who ruled in favor of Cardoso and the psychologist who worked on her case.

“They understand a family is not only formed by parents and their children, but also by an extended family, recognizing the importance of grandparents and aunts and uncles as members of the fundamental unit of society, the family,” wrote Acepto on its Facebook page.

Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues as director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education, has publicly backed marriage rights for same-sex couples. LGBT activists who work independently of Mariela Castro and her organization continue to urge Cuban lawmakers to debate the issue.

Mariela Castro, who is a member of the Cuban National Assembly, has not publicly acknowledged these efforts. Mariela Castro on Wednesday acknowledged on her Twitter page that she “has had the honor and the responsibility of being nominated” as a candidate for the National Assembly for the second time.

Por segunda ocasión he tenido el honor y la responsabilidad de ser nominada como diputada al Parlamento #Cuba

— Mariela Castro Espin (@CastroEspinM) January 23, 2018

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Jan. 9 issued a landmark ruling that recognizes same-sex marriage and transgender rights. The decision is not legally binding in Cuba because it is not party to the American Convention on Human Rights.

Cuba provides free sex-reassignment surgeries through its national health care system. Mariela Castro last May acknowledged during a Havana press conference that only 35 people have undergone the procedure in the country since 2008.

Victor Manuel Dueñas, a Cuban LGBT rights advocate, gives a presentation at the Centro Comunitario de Cultura, an LGBT community center in Santo Domingo, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. Dueñas and his cousin on Jan. 28, 2018, asked for asylum in the Netherlands. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Victor Manuel Dueñas, who founded an LGBT community center in the Cuban town of Santo Domingo, and his cousin, bought roundtrip tickets to Moscow from Havana’s José Martí International Airport with a layover at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

Dueñas and his cousin left Havana on Saturday night and arrived in Amsterdam the next day. Dueñas posted a short video to his Facebook page before he and his cousin formally asked for asylum.

“A group of Cubans have come here,” he said.

Dueñas works independently of Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBT-specific issues on the island as the director of the National Center for Sexual Education.

Dueñas is among the activists who launched “Nosotros También Amamos” — a campaign in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples in Cuba — in 2015. Dueñas is also affiliated with the Babel Sociocultural Project, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBT Cubans and other disadvantaged groups.

Hurricane Irma last September damaged Dueñas’ community center.

Dueñas on Sunday told the Washington Blade during a WhatsApp interview from Schiphol Airport that Cuban authorities began to target him because of the Babel Sociocultural Project’s efforts to raise awareness of police mistreatment of LGBT people in the city of Cárdenas, which is roughly 100 miles east of Havana on the island’s northern coast. Dueñas also said the government “considered” the same-sex marriage campaign that he and other advocates launched “a big mistake.”

“It’s not about the project,” he told the Blade. “It’s about me.”

Dueñas said he and his cousin are currently with more than half a dozen other LGBT Cubans who flew from Havana to Amsterdam last week. They will remain at Schiphol Airport until Dutch authorities interview them and begin to process their asylum requests.

Adriana, a transgender woman from Havana, told the Blade on WhatsApp from Schiphol Airport that Cuban police harassed her and other trans women. She and another trans woman in Dueñas’ group with whom the Blade spoke said authorities prevent them and others from gathering in parks and other public places because they think they are sex workers.

“I feel very good here,” said Adriana.

Independent activists harassed, detained

Mariela Castro publicly supports marriage rights for same-sex couples.

She took a picture with Dueñas and his partner last May during an International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia march that she led in Havana. Mariela Castro’s supporters also note that Cuba provides free sex-reassignment surgeries through its national health care system.

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, leads an LGBT march through Havana on May 13, 2017. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Maykel González and his partner, Carlos Alejandro Rodríguez, who are independent journalists and activists, were detained last September as they covered Irma preparations in the city of Sagua la Grande. Nelson Gandulla, president of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights, last May told the Blade that authorities prevented him from meeting with Gender Rights Maryland Executive Director Dana Beyer, Equality Florida CEO Nadine Smith and other American activists in Havana.

The Blade could not immediately confirm Dueñas’ claim that 2,500 LGBT Cubans have asked for asylum in the Netherlands. He said a Dutch diplomat was with him, his cousin and a group of six other LGBT Cubans at the airport in Havana on Saturday.

Dueñas told the Blade that only his cousin and he flew to Amsterdam. He said a Cuban intelligence agent came to his home earlier this month and said he knew he was “going to Holland with the faggots.”

“This was a threat,” said Dueñas.

Dueñas said he faces eight years in prison if he is deported back to Cuba. The Blade has reached out to the Cuban government for comment on this claim.

El cambio de política estadounidense hacia Cuba ha provocado a los cubanos de buscar nuevas rutas para salir del país (Foto del Washington Blade por Michael K. Lavers)

Tremenda Nota originalmente publicó esa nota en su sitio web.

LA HABANA — Hasta hace un año el itinerario de los migrantes cubanos parecía un río extenso y caudaloso pero el 12 de enero de 2017 un acuerdo fragmentó aquella corriente en cien arroyos: Barack Obama acordó con Raúl Castro cancelar el criterio de humedad que regulaba la entrada cubana a Estados Unidos. No más pies secos ni mojados.

En 2016, con la intuición del final, más de cuarenta mil cubanos mostraron sus pies secos en la frontera de México. Al año siguiente, tras la nueva política migratoria, se redujeron a quince mil.

El final de la denominada “política de pies secos, pies mojados,” establecida en 1995 por Bill Clinton, engendró la noción de pies enfangados. Los cubanos van por derroteros increíbles.

A Chile se llega por Guyana

“Se montaron en la camioneta unas siete personas llenas de polvo,” dice una doctora en Pedagogía de unos treinta años que no quiere publicar su nombre en una carta a la que accedió Tremenda Nota. Le escribió a un amigo que se quedó en Santa Clara: “una mujer me dijo: ¿Eres cubana? Y solo asentí con la cabeza y miré para el otro lado. Ese fue el momento justo en que comprendí que aquello era tráfico de personas.” Eso le sucedió en Lethem, en la frontera entre Guyana y Brasil. Georgetown, la capital guyanesa, es la última puerta para los cubanos en Sudamérica, el único aeropuerto continental que los admite sin reclamar visa.

“Todo el tiempo pensé, ‘Ahora nos matan, tendremos que correr, estás loca’” continúa la pedagoga en la carta. Dice que siempre le interesó Uruguay, un país caro pero con calidad de vida. Que quería un sitio donde hablaran español para retomar su carrera de profesora. Cruzó la selva guyanesa porque el consulado uruguayo le negó una visa de turista en La Habana.

Amaury Santos, un veinteañero desempleado, bailarín folclórico, usó la ruta de Georgetown para irse a Concepción, Chile, a la a casa de una amiga: “Lo más difícil del camino fueron las montañas de Bolivia” recuerda. Amaury ya consiguió empleo en un restaurante.

Los cubanos se han esparcido por todas partes. En el diario El País de Uruguay, estudiaron el fenómeno: Cuatro de cada diez cubanos que consiguieron la residencia en los últimos dos años en el país charrúa, son profesionales. No se quedan solo en Montevideo, pueblos como Santa Rosa, con menos de cuatro mil habitantes, acogieron unos 220 cubanos durante 2017.

En Chile se han producido disturbios en la localidad de Tarapacá, en la frontera con Bolivia. Desde febrero de 2017, con el fin de “pies secos pies mojados,” solicitaron el ingreso más de 350 viajeros procedentes de Cuba. El 13 de octubre último 74 migrantes cubanos intentaron entrar sin visa y se toparon con los carabineros.

A Amsterdam se llega por Moscú

Dos cubanos de Camajuaní y Yaguajay, José Miguel y Ana Estela, beben chocolate y fuman marihuana a ratos, si un amigo convida, en un coffee shop de Amsterdam. Tienen menos de 30. Viven en Dronten, un campamento de refugiados.

En febrero de 2017 muchos cubanos llegaron a Holanda. Ese mes hubo seis solicitantes de asilo. Para noviembre, 57. José Miguel y Ana Estela aseguran que muchos son gays, lesbianas, transgéneros. Ninguno, ninguna, quiere hablar con la prensa. Comparten la prudencia y el itinerario: La ida es un pasaje a Moscú, el principal destino europeo que no demanda visa a los cubanos, luego sigue bajar en Holanda y pedir asilo en el aeropuerto de Schiphol, en Amsterdam.

“No queremos represalias contra nuestras familias,” se excusa José Miguel para no decir su nombre. Con un abrigo de mujer, el gorro y los puños de astracán, José Miguel apura un trago de chocolate antes de explicar por qué tanta gente LGBTI sale de Cuba para Moscú y desembarcan en Amsterdam. “Se ha corrido el rumor por La Habana que los holandeses apoyan a los homosexuales. Y hasta en provincias nos hemos enterado.”

“Se exagera un poco en la entrevista para pedir asilo,” explica Ana Estela, “pero en estos casos, mientes si hace falta. La clave es aprenderte bien lo que cuentas, para repetirlo siempre.”

Casi ninguno consigue demostrar persecución en Cuba por orientación sexual o identidad de género. Las discriminaciones estructurales ejercidas en Cuba contra las minorías sexuales carecen del dramatismo que podría conquistar a las autoridades holandesas.

José Miguel y Ana Estela saben que les negarán el asilo. Un par de semanas después de la charla en el coffee shop dejaron Dronten y se marcharon a España. Viven ilegales en la costa del Mediterráneo, van de Valencia a Murcia.

Aleida González Hernández, una morena de cincuenta años, viajó engañada a Moscú, “estafada” dice ella, y supo que tenía alguna oportunidad en Amsterdam por casualidad, ahí mismo, en un corredor del aeropuerto de Schiphol. Se la ve debilitada, frágil. Le vendieron que Holanda era un lugar ideal para ser lesbiana.

“En Rusia no hay oportunidad de legalizarse ni de trabajar y es mentira que uno pueda llegar a Estados Unidos desde allí.” Mevrouw González, como la llamaban en Holanda (Mevrouw significa “Señora” en holandés), volvió a Cuba “cansada de estar muda y sola” en el campamento de refugiados de Heerhugowaard.

Para migrar a Europa, los cubanos más solventes no tienen que irse a Rusia. Prefieren entrar desde el principio al espacio Schengen y escoger dónde quedarse. Hay un modo de hacerlo: comprar un paquete turístico, un viaje en crucero por Italia que oferta la empresa estatal Havanatur desde 2014.

Así lo hizo Roberto García Gordillo, vecino de Aleida: “era mi sueño de toda la vida, pero tuve problemas con mi novio, me quedé solo en Italia y pasé mucho trabajo.” Migrar con el pretexto de un tour por Italia incluye la ventaja de una visa Schengen, gestionada con la embajada italiana por las empresas a cargo del paquete.

En una casa de Pueblo Nuevo, un barrio de Sagua la Grande, Mevrouw González confiesa que su itinerario hacia Amsterdam transcurrió a la inversa: “pedí asilo al regreso, decepcionada de Rusia y de los cubanos allí.”

Estaba Aleida en Heerhugowaard, sin echar de menos Moscú, mientras Hanoi Llorca y Yenifer Graverán pasaban meses en el aeropuerto de Sheremétievo. Ahí vivían, varados desde noviembre de 2016. Ahí vivieron, entre la terminal y un refugio, hasta octubre de 2017. Esta saga agotó todos los extremos que viven los cubanos en Rusia, donde solo disponen de un mes de estancia.

“Mis orichas caminaron conmigo medio mundo,” evoca Mevrouw González, practicante de la santería cubana, hija de Obatalá. “Iban en una bolsa, como al garete, y recogieron tierra de Moscú, de Amsterdam, de los campamentos de refugiados. Ahora son más fuertes. Tanto, que me trajeron a La Habana.”

Con sus propios pies, falta decir, ni secos ni mojados. Pies enfangados.

Miguel Díaz-Canel will succeed Raúl Castro as the president of Cuba. (Photo public domain)

Members of the Cuban National Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly backed Díaz-Canel, the country’s first vice president and the only person nominated to succeed Castro. Díaz-Canel will be the first Cuban president who is from outside the Castro family since the 1959 revolution that brought Raúl Castro’s brother, Fidel Castro, to power.

Fidel Castro died in 2016.

The National Assembly on Thursday officially announced Díaz-Canel will become president.

Raúl Castro will remain the head of Cuba’s Communist Party. His daughter, Mariela Castro, who spearheads LGBT-specific issues as director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), is a member of the National Assembly.

Some of Mariela Castro’s Cuban supporters who attended a speech that she gave last May in Havana to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia described her as “our next president.” Mariela Castro downplayed speculation over whether she would succeed her father.

New president supported LGBT cultural center

Díaz-Canel, 57, was born in Villa Clara Province.

A source in the province with whom the Washington Blade spoke on Wednesday said Díaz-Canel recently defended Mariela Castro’s doctoral thesis that focused on the “social integration” of transgender people. The source also pointed out that Díaz-Canel supported El Mejunje, an LGBT cultural center and nightclub in the city of Santa Clara, when he was secretary of the Communist Party in the province.

El Mejunje is an LGBT cultural center and nightclub in Santa Clara, Cuba. Miguel Díaz-Canel, who will succeed Raúl Castro as Cuba’s next president, supported El Mejunje when he was secretary of the Communist Party in Villa Clara Province. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

The Obama administration in 2014 normalized relations between the U.S. and Cuba. President Trump last June reinstated some travel and trade restrictions and reaffirmed his administration’s support of the U.S. embargo against the Communist island, even though Trump’s company and several of his associates reportedly violated it in 1998 and again in late 2012 or early 2013.

Díaz-Canel will also take power against the backdrop of a stagnant economy and continued criticism over Cuba’s human rights record.

Victor Manuel Dueñas — an activist from Villa Clara Province who worked independently of Mariela Castro and CENESEX — and his cousin are among the group of LGBT Cubans who traveled to Amsterdam in January and asked the Dutch government for asylum. Other independent LGBT activists with whom the Blade has spoken in recent years maintain they face discrimination and even arrest if they publicly criticize Mariela Castro, her father or the Cuban government.

Asamblea Nacional de Cuba elige al próximo presidente del país

Miguel Díaz-Canel ha sido elegido para suceder a Raúl Castro como el nuevo presidente de Cuba.

Miembros de la Asamblea Nacional de Cuba el miércoles apoyaron abrumadoramente a Díaz-Canel, el primer vicepresidente del país y la única persona nominada para suceder a Castro. Díaz-Canel será el primer presidente cubano quien no es de la familia Castro desde la revolución de 1959 que llevó a Fidel Castro al poder.

Fidel Castro se murió en 2016.

La Asamblea Nacional el jueves anunció oficialmente que Díaz-Canel se convertirá en presidente.

Raúl Castro permanecerá la cabeza del Partido Comunista de Cuba. Su hija, Mariela Castro, quien promueve los temas LGBT como directora del Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX), es miembro de la Asamblea Nacional.

Algunos de los partidarios de Mariela Castro quien asistieron un discurso que dio el pasado mayo en La Habana para conmemorar el Día Internacional contra la Homofobia y la Transfobia describieron a ella como “nuestro próxima presidenta.” Mariela Castro restaba importancia a las especulaciones sobre si ella sucedería a su padre.

Díaz-Canel, 57, fue nacido en la provincia de Villa Clara.

Una fuente en la provincia dijo al Washington Blade el miércoles que Díaz-Canel defendió recientemente la tesis de doctorado de Mariela Castro sobre la “integración social” de personas trans. La fuente también dijo que Díaz-Canel apoyó El Mejunje, un centro cultural LGBT en la ciudad de Santa Clara, cuando era secretario del Partido Comunista en la provincia.

La selección de Díaz-Canel para suceder a Raúl Castro se realizó menos de una mes antes de los eventos de CENESEX en La Habana y en la ciudad de Pinar del Río que conmemorará IDAHOT.

La administración de Obama en 2014 normalizó relaciones entre los EEUU y Cuba. El presidente Trump el pasado junio restableció algunas restricciones de viaje y comercio y reafirmó el apoyo de su administración al bloqueo estadounidense contra la isla comunista, a pesar de que la compañía de Trump y varios de sus asociados supuestamente lo violaron en 1998 y nuevamente a fines de 2012 o principios de 2013.

Díaz-Canel también tomará el poder en el contexto de una economía estancada y continuas críticas sobre los derechos humanos en Cuba.

Victor Manuel Dueñas — un activista desde la provincia de Villa Clara quien trabajaba independiente de Mariela Castro y CENESEX — y su primo están entre el grupo de cubanos LGBT quien viajaron a Amsterdam en enero y pidieron el asilo en los Países Bajos. Otros activistas LGBT independientes han dicho al Blade que confrontan la discriminación e incluso el arresto si critican públicamente a Mariela Castro, su padre o el gobierno cubano.

‘We need to reclaim our country,’ said Dana Beyer, who is running for the Maryland state Senate. (Photo courtesy of Beyer)

The executive director of Gender Rights Maryland would become the first openly transgender state senator in the country if she were to win her race for the Maryland Senate in November.

Dana Beyer, a retired ophthalmologist, is running against state Del. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery County) and Michelle Carhart in the Democratic primary in Senate District 18 that will take place on June 26.

State Sen. Rich Madaleno (D-Montgomery County) is not seeking re-election and is among the Democratic gubernatorial candidates who hope to unseat Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. There are no Republicans running for Madaleno’s seat.

Beyer on her campaign website notes her platform includes support for a single-payer national health care system and fighting discrimination against LGBT people and other marginalized groups. She also says she feels she “can contribute constructively to make Maryland a place that will attract a new generation, with ideas to propel us into national leadership, for the next generation economy.”

Beyer noted to the Washington Blade on Monday during an interview she would be the only openly trans legislator in Maryland and the only physician in the state Senate if she were elected. She also pointed out she would be the only openly LGBT person in the state Senate if state Del. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City) doesn’t win her race.

“I would have a formal platform to represent the transgender community, given the federal regime’s efforts to roll back rights,” Beyer told the Blade.

Beyer was previously a senior assistant to then-Montgomery County Councilwoman Duchy Tractenberg.

Beyer in 2010 challenged state Del. Alfred Carr (D-Montgomery County). She was among the 11 openly trans delegates to the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Maryland’s trans rights bill that then-Gov. Martin O’Malley signed in 2014 is among the LGBT-specific issues for which Beyer has advocated over the last decade. Beyer is also among the American LGBT rights advocates who traveled to Havana in 2017 and took part in events commemorating the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia that Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, and her organization, Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, organized.

Beyer, who is also the vice chair of the Civil Rights Coalition of Maryland, told the Blade she would have an advantage in Annapolis because of her work as an activist.

“You have to know how the system works,” said Beyer. “You have to have power and strength in your committee. You have to know how to pull things out.”

Beyer in 2014 unsuccessfully challenged Madaleno in the Democratic primary.

The race became increasingly heated and personal in the final weeks, but the two have reconciled any differences that they had.

Madaleno said last month during an interview with the Blade’s editorial staff that he has not “taken a position” in the race to succeed him. Beyer on Monday said Madaleno “hasn’t asked” her to endorse him.

The LGBTQ Victory Fund in March endorsed Beyer. The LGBTQ Democrats of Montgomery County last week did not make an endorsement in Beyer’s race when it announced the candidates it is supporting in this election cycle.

Beyer on Monday described state Del. Meagan Simonaire (R-Anne Arundel County)’s speech on the floor of the Maryland House of Delegates in which she came out as bisexual and said her parents, including state Sen. Bryan Simonaire (R-Anne Arundel County), suggested she undergo so-called conversion therapy as “remarkable.” Beyer also told the Blade she hopes Meagan Simonaire will publicly advocate for LGBT-specific issues once she leaves the General Assembly at the end of the year.

“She’s a powerful ally,” she said.

Beyer acknowledged to the Blade that Hogan has “smartly stayed away from social issues” during his first term. Beyer nevertheless echoed Madaleno when he told the Blade that he is “more concerned” about Hogan’s second term if he were to win re-election.

“I fear though if he were to get a second term he would feel unchained and I feel concerned what he would do if Trump were still in office during a second Hogan term,” she said. “I feel concerned what he would do if Pence were in office during a second Hogan term.”

Beyer also said she does not expect President Trump will be impeached in 2018. Beyer added, however, the “utter moral collapse of the Republican Party” is one of worst of what she described as the “many tragedies in the circumstances today.”

“We need to reclaim our country,” she writes on her campaign website. “We need to stand, forthrightly, for the American creed — the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — life, liberty and equality. These can no longer be simply words in a dog-eared elementary school text, or an oft-avoided high school civics class. These must be our operating principles, for we live in dangerous times.”

The post Beyer looks to make history in Maryland appeared first on Washington Blade: Gay News, Politics, LGBT Rights.

A wooden Pride flag hangs on the wall inside the kitchen of Diverso, a private restaurant in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

HAVANA — Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), which Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, directs, organized a series of events this month in Havana and in the city of Pinar del Río that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

LGBTI activists who work independently of Mariela Castro and CENESEX in Havana and in the provinces of Artemisa and Villa Clara are among those with whom the Washington Blade spoke while in Cuba from May 8-18.

This trip took place less than a month after the Cuban National Assembly selected Miguel Díaz-Canel to succeed Raúl Castro as the country’s president. President Trump last June reinstated some of the travel and trade restrictions that former President Obama lifted in 2014 when he sought to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

The post PHOTOS: Washington Blade returns to Cuba appeared first on Washington Blade: Gay News, Politics, LGBT Rights.

A woman takes part in a march to commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia in Havana on May 12, 2018. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) Director Mariela Castro and transgender actress Daniela Vega are among the thousands of people who took part in a march in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood on May 12. Mariela Castro also participated in a similar march in the city of Pinar del Río on May 17 that drew thousands of people.

The Washington Blade was in Cuba from May 8-18.

LGBTI activists who work independently of Mariela Castro and CENESEX in Havana and in the provinces of Artemisa and Villa Clara are among those with whom the Blade spoke on the island.

The Cuban National Assembly last month selected Miguel Díaz-Canel — the former head of the Cuban Communist Party in Villa Clara Province who supported an LGBTI-friendly cultural center in the city of Santa Clara — to succeed Raúl Castro as the country’s president. The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia events that CENESEX organized also took place less than a year after President Trump reinstated some of the travel and trade restrictions that former President Obama lifted in 2014 when he sought to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

A plane that Cubana, the country’s national airline, had chartered from a Mexican charter company crashed on Friday shortly after taking off from Havana’s José Martí International Airport while en route to the city of Holguín in eastern Cuba. The crash left 110 passengers and crew members dead.

Cuban media reported Gretell Landrove Font, one of the three women who survived the crash, passed away on Monday. Mailen Díaz and Emiley Sánchez remain in critical condition at a Havana hospital.

Havana IDAHOTB march participants

Blade reports from Havana IDAHOTB march

Revelers dance on fence during Havana IDAHOTB march

Electric violinist performs at LGBT-friendly Havana bar

IDAHOTB march in Santa Clara

Mariela Castro, CENESEX staffer appear on Cuban television

IDAHOTB march in Pinar del Río

Cabaret dancers at IDAHOTB party in Pinar del Río

Report from Havana airport after plane crash

Taxiing at Havana airport after plane crash

The post VIDEOS: Cuba marks IDAHOTB appeared first on Washington Blade: Gay News, Politics, LGBT Rights.

Jansel Moreno, right, with his partner, Victor Manuel Dueñas. Dueñas in January flew to Amsterdam with his cousin, Onasis Torres, and asked the Dutch government for asylum. (Photo courtesy of Victor Manuel Dueñas)

Jansel Moreno spoke with the Washington Blade on May 15 in Santa Clara, a city in Villa Clara Province that is roughly 170 miles southeast of Havana.

Moreno’s partner, Victor Manuel Dueñas, founded an LGBTI community center in Santo Domingo, a town that is outside of Santa Clara. Dueñas and his cousin, Onasis Torres, are also affiliated with the Babel Sociocultural Project, a Cuban LGBTI advocacy group, and are among the activists who launched “Nosotros También Amamos,” a campaign in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples on the island.

Moreno told the Blade that Dueñas and Torres were receiving “threats from the state” after the Babel Sociocultural Project late last year began to publicly question the police’s mistreatment of LGBTI people in the city of Cárdenas.

Moreno and his mother were with Dueñas and Torres at Havana’s José Martí International Airport on Jan. 27 before they boarded a flight to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport where they asked for asylum on grounds that they face persecution in Cuba based on their sexual orientation. Moreno told the Blade it was “very emotional.”

“He kissed me, I kissed him,” he said. “It was very tough.”

Dueñas met with U.S. activists in Havana in 2017

Dueñas and Torres worked independently of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTI-specific issues as director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX). Dueñas is among the Cuban LGBTI activists who met with Gender Rights Maryland Executive Director Dana Beyer, Equality Florida CEO Nadine Smith and other American advocates at the U.S. Embassy in Havana last May.

Mariela Castro on May 4 told reporters during a Havana press conference that CENESEX plans to submit proposals to Cuba’s National Assembly that would extend marriage and other rights to LGBTI Cubans. CENESEX this month also held marches and other events in Havana and in the city of Pinar del Río that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

Supporters of Mariela Castro and CENESEX point out Cuba since 2008 has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries under its national health care system, even though less than 50 people have been able to obtain the procedure. A Havana woman who is raising her late daughter’s three young children with her same-sex partner last October received custody of them.

Moreno told the Blade it is difficult for LGBTI Cubans to prove they face persecution based on their sexual orientation.

Dueñas and Torres are currently living with other asylum seekers in the Dutch city of Utrecht.

Moreno remains optimistic the Dutch government will grant Dueñas asylum, but the prospects for Torres and other LGBTI Cubans remain in doubt.

Dueñas has previously told the Blade that more than 200 LGBTI Cubans are currently seeking asylum in the Netherlands.

Dutch government urged to accept Cubans’ asylum request

Dueñas on Thursday told the Blade from the Netherlands that Dutch Secretary of State Mark Harbers has said he will not accept the Cubans’ asylum requests, even though they have held protests and press conferences outside the country’s Parliament in The Hague. COC Nederlands, a Dutch LGBTI advocacy group, and LGBT Asylum Support are working with the Cubans.

“To reject asylum request from hundreds of Cuban LGBTI without thorough investigations into the situation in Cuba is unacceptable,” said COC Nederlands Chair Tanja Ineke in a May 9 statement.

Dueñas said his lawyer has told him that Dutch authorities have until July 30 to make a decision in his case. He also provided handwritten documents to the Blade that indicate Cuban authorities have charged him and Torres with “treason” and “treason against the homeland.”

Dueñas said he and Torres face up to eight years in prison if they return to Cuba.

“That’s why I’m really screwed,” said Dueñas.

Dueñas told the Blade that Cuban authorities detained a woman was deported from the Netherlands on May 19. He also said LGBTI Cubans — including Nelson Gandulla, founder of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI Rights — are now seeking asylum in Spain, Serbia and other European countries.

A spokesperson for the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security on Friday declined to comment on Dueñas and Torres’ cases, but did provide statistics that indicate they are among the 155 Cubans who asked for asylum in the Netherlands in January. A spokesperson for the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs has yet to respond to the Blade’s request for comment.

Dueñas: ‘I am truly afraid’

Moreno still lives in Dueñas’ family home and he speaks with him through email or WhatsApp, even though access to the Internet in Cuba remains somewhat difficult and expensive. Moreno did not specifically tell the Blade whether he wants to join Dueñas in the Netherlands if he were to receive asylum.

“Right now I feel really sorry,” said Moreno.

Dueñas told the Blade the uncertainly over his case “and above all else whether he will be able to see Jancel, my mom or my nearly 80-year-old grandmother one day” is also taking its toll.

“I am truly afraid,” said Dueñas. “With Holland I am not sure.”

Victor Manuel Dueñas, a Cuban LGBT rights advocate, gives a presentation at the Centro Comunitario de Cultura, an LGBT community center in Santo Domingo, Cuba, on May 16, 2017. Dueñas and his cousin on Jan. 28, 2018, asked for asylum in the Netherlands. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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A 14-member delegation with the Center for Democracy in the Americas was in Cuba from May 11-15, 2018. (Photo courtesy of Ryan Ubuntu Olson)

The Center for Democracy in the Americas delegation arrived in Havana on May 11 and returned to the U.S. on May 15.

The trip coincided with a series of events the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) — an organization that Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, directs — organized around the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

The delegation — which included Ryan Ubuntu Olson, a senior advisor for the Palladium Group — attended a CENESEX gala and march in Havana. The delegation also met with LGBTI activists who work independently of CENESEX, artists, academics, entrepreneurs and officials at the U.S. Embassy.

Quinn, Olson and other members of the delegation met with representatives of CubaOne, a Miami-based organization that brings young Cuban Americans to Cuba.

The delegation did not meet with Mariela Castro. Quinn on Wednesday noted to the Washington Blade during a telephone interview from Madrid the delegation did meet with the director of Cuba’s National Center for the Prevention of STDs and HIV/AIDS.

“I loved it,” said Quinn, referring to the trip.

Olson echoed Quinn.

“As a global LGBTI human rights advocate and HIV and sexual and reproductive champion, I was honored to join a trip of experts to learn more about the experiences of LGBTI Cubans, their resiliency and hope for the future,” Olson told the Blade in a statement.

Ryan Ubuntu Olson of D.C. attends a march in Havana on May 12, 2018, that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. He was part of a 14-member delegation with the Center for Democracy in the Americas that was in Cuba from May 11-15, 2018. (Photo courtesy of Ryan Ubuntu Olson)

Quinn last October traveled to the Communist island with the Center for Democracy in the Americas. U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) was also part of the delegation that focused on LGBTI issues and Cuba’s growing private sector.

Cuba’s LGBTI efforts a ‘180-degree turn from their horrible past’

Mariela Castro earlier this month said CENESEX is planning to submit proposals to the Cuban National Assembly that would extend marriage and other rights to LGBT Cubans.

Gay men are among those who were sent to labor camps — known by the Spanish acronym UMAPs — in the years after the 1959 revolution that brought Mariela Castro’s uncle, Fidel Castro, to power. The Cuban government until 1993 forcibly quarantined people with HIV/AIDS in state-run sanitaria.

Fidel Castro in 2010 apologized for the camps during an interview with a Mexican newspaper. Cuba in 2015 became the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.

Cuba since 2008 has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries through its national health care system. Quinn on Wednesday also noted CENESEX is working to combat anti-LGBTI bullying in the country’s schools.

“It’s a 180-degree turn from their horrible past,” she said. “That is real and it is part of history, but rarely do you see a country do a total turnaround.”

Independent LGBTI rights advocates with whom the Blade has previously spoken have said they face harassment and even arrest if they publicly criticize Mariela Castro or the Cuban government. Three activists — Victor Manuel Dueñas and his cousin, Onasis Torres, and Nelson Gandulla, founder of the Cuban Foundation for LGBTI rights — since January have requested asylum in the Netherlands and Spain respectively.

Quinn said Cuba’s human rights record is “clearly problematic.” She also pointed out racism against Cubans of African descent remains a serious problem.

“Two things can be true at the same time,” Quinn added, noting the U.S. has close diplomatic relationships with countries that have poor human rights records. “One can deserve recognition and the other must demand recognition.”

Quinn criticizes Trump’s Cuba policy, U.S. embargo

The delegation traveled to Cuba less than a month after the National Assembly chose Miguel Díaz-Canel to succeed Raúl Castro as the country’s president. The trip also took place against the backdrop of President Trump’s decision nearly a year ago to reinstate travel and trade restrictions with Cuba the Obama administration lifted in 2014 when it moved to normalize diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Communist island.

Quinn told the Blade she was “obviously very upset when President Trump rolled things back.” She also criticized the U.S. embargo against Cuba that has been in place since 1962.

“So much about Cuba is kind of cartoonized in America,” Quinn told the Blade. “So to go there you see the poverty, you see the embargo is hurting no one but the people. The Castros are fine.”

“It’s important for Americans to see their government’s policies in real time,” she added.

Former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, right, attends a march in Havana on May 12, 2018, that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. She was part of a 14-member delegation with the Center for Democracy in the Americas that was in Cuba from May 11-15, 2018. (Photo courtesy of Ryan Ubuntu Olson)

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Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel (Photo public domain)

Tremenda Nota originally published this story on its website in Spanish.

The new Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, has defended the presence of Cuba’s gay Pride mecca, El Mejunje. However, his gay-friendly record conflicts with his support of other kinds of censorship, such as independent media. How tolerant is Raúl Castro’s successor?

The new head of state is remembered in Villa Clara, a province in the center of Cuba, as a kind of revolutionary messiah: The man who always greeted strangers on the street, who mixed with the common people and asked for their opinions to solve problems in the community.

People would make the names of other Villa Clara leaders diminutives to feign some kind of familiarity. Humberto Rodríguez, the former president of the Provincial Assembly of People’s Power, was nicknamed Humbertico. Omar Martín and Julio Lima, each first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in Villa Clara at different times, were called Omarito and Julito. But Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has always been Díaz-Canel, showing familiarity with respect.

In the early 1990s, when he was named the first secretary of the PCC in the province, Díaz-Canel was a scrawny young man with a strawberry-blonde mane who went to work on a bicycle and wore frayed striped pullovers. People say he was a Santa Clara sex symbol, who mastered a look that was “feline, naval and powerful.”

However, according to El Mejunje’s founder, Ramón Silverio, in the late 80s and the early 90s Díaz-Canel was “a charismatic man, like a Hollywood star, very elegant. He knew how to dress and he was very sensitive to the culture.” He was in power at a difficult time; he had to find resources when there were none.

Silverio believes that El Mejunje’s continued existence is thanks to the new president and he is grateful. In Cuba the relationship between a citizen and a politician is not so much between representative and represented but rather between a debtor and creditor. The asymmetry makes all the power flow upwards.

Silverio, El Mejunje’s mentor, is about to turn 70. He is a person with an unhurried nature, contrasted by his deep voice. His eyes are always half closed and his small hunchback is only slightly noticeable. He does not have any children but he is the father and grandfather of many generations, “the savior of the marginalized.”

When some decision makers of the province and other conservatives with political influence attempted to defame El Mejunje and its “suspicious” activities (referring to the LGBTI+ meetings that were held there) Díaz-Canel understood the value of a place where a diverse range of sexual preferences, people and opinions could be expressed. At the time Ramón Silverio himself was concerned that people would be able to understand what El Mejunje was about.

El Mejunje is an LGBT cultural center and nightclub in Santa Clara, Cuba. President Miguel Díaz-Canel supported El Mejunje when he was first secretary of the Communist Party in Villa Clara Province. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Side by side

Nelys Valdés was a member of the team chosen by Díaz-Canel in the early 90s to develop Villa Clara’s cultural sector with the limited resources available. Thanks to him she visited El Mejunje for the first time. Díaz-Canel convinced her that “nothing negative can happen in a place that is so frequented by artists and writers.” Nelys says, “I’ll never forget that night.” “He had an objective vision about artistic hierarchies. He always knew that you have to take risks.”

Nelys, the former provincial director of Culture, is retired from the Santa Clara’s nightlife. Her hair is going grey now but at the time she was in the prime of her life and worked “side by side” with Díaz-Canel to defend the artistic events generated by El Mejunje.

Now it is almost an honor to be a mejunjero, but Nelys and Silverio both concede that at the time there was a lot of prejudice around homosexuality and diversity in general. Silverio recalls that, “While he [Díaz-Canel] was around there was no fear. You wouldn’t hear about any campaigns against any issues connected with El Mejunje, whether it was a Miss Travesti or a Halloween event. There was never a threat against the cultural center.” The founder believes that “El Mejunje gets closest to the kind of country we’d like to have.”

Although the Cuban president has never made a public statement regarding the definitive approval of equal marriage in Cuba, he has participated in galas against homophobia and transphobia in the Karl Marx Theater. To date he has been “the state leader and highest ranking politician who has supported the Cuban Days [Against Homophobia and Transphobia],” according to the Cuban journalist and LGBTI+ activist Francisco Rodríguez Cruz in an article published in his blog Paquito el de Cuba.

The famous Cuban blogger emphasizes that the most important event demonstrating the new Cuban president’s understanding of diversity and sexual rights happened during the Labor Code debate in December 2013. Díaz-Canel suggested entrusting a parliamentary commission with the definitive redaction of a law in favor of LGBTI+ rights, and sought to reach consensus around some parliamentarians’ technical (presumably prejudiced) arguments against it.

Argentinian journalist Martín Caparrós recently revealed details about his meeting with the new president over 20 years ago. The journalist asked the Cuban leader if it was true that he had declared himself to be, “The secretary for all, the workers, students, farmers, homosexuals.” Díaz-Canel responded, “I didn’t say it, but I have always said that we have to give a space to everyone, to work for everyone.”

Mariela Castro, Raúl Castro’s daughter and director of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), also said that when Díaz-Canel was an official in the Young Communist Union he was responsible for working with CENESEX. Therefore, he had received training in the area of sexual rights when he became first secretary of the PCC in Villa Clara.

Nevertheless, many are not hopeful about a constitutional change that recognizes all of the rights related to sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. Díaz-Canel also has a tough position. No one could guarantee that he would support all parties and positions.

Months before his “election” the Cuban president appeared in a leaked video where he advocated closing down independent media, some members of which are spokespeople of the Cuban LGBTI+ community.

The alternative digital media appearing in Cuba over the last decade has brought to light the stories of many transsexuals, gays and lesbians in Cuba for the first time, which had not found a place in official newspapers. An article published in the digital newspaper Infobae adds that the orthodox image of Díaz-Canel contrasts with the perception of him as a simple man, affable but demanding, that many of his fellow citizens in the Villa Clara Province have of him.

After less than a month of becoming the president of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba it is only possible to confirm that Díaz-Canel, while he encouraged El Mejunje and has discretely supported the LGBTI+ community, has also repressed or tolerated the repression of other groups, such as independent journalists, political activists and dissident artists. None of these groups have received the same kind of “encouragement” from the president as the homosexual community; quite the opposite in fact.

Conjecture aside, opinion leaders like Ramón Silverio, cross their fingers and hope “Díaz-Canel is not homophobic at all. If he was, he would have been a detractor and not a defender of El Mejunje.” Silverio remembers that the current president often attended children’s activities with his children and, at that time, he wasn’t even the first secretary of the PCC. Back then parents who took their children to El Mejunje were more progressive. Díaz-Canel would recommend many that many artists, many important people like Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada (former president of the National Assembly of People’s Power) visit El Mejunje. In the cultural center they still believe that Díaz-Canel speaks about it and that he recognizes it as an important part of Cuban culture and uses it as an example.

María Caridad Jorge has been manager of El Mejunje, the most inclusive venue in Cuba, since the 1990s when it moved to its current location. She is a lesbian and a LGBTI+ community activist in Santa Clara. She can easily remember Díaz-Canel’s visits to El Mejunje. “He supported us in every sense,” she states. María Caridad believes that Díaz-Canel had a long-term vision of the work that was being achieved and he was someone who understood that LGBTI+ groups also have the right to participate in culture. María sees Díaz-Canel as just an average run of the mill person. This is important because she believes “there’s no point leading a country where the people don’t know you.”

Miguel Díaz-Canel was not part of the revolutionary generation that believed that homosexuality was an aberration and that the “deviants” should be punished and locked up. Will he promote equal marriage now that he holds this new position of ultimate authority in the country? His actions will indicate whether his experience in El Mejunje was a precedent or an anecdote. If he promotes the rights of the LGBTI+ community but cuts short those of journalists, opposition or critical artists, his tolerance will be a frustrated synecdoche: One part will not be enough to triumph over the rest.

A Pride flag hangs from a balcony at El Mejunje, an LGBT-friendly cultural center in Santa Clara, Cuba, on May 15, 2018. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel supported the center when he was first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party in Villa Clara Province. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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