Mariela González Noroña is "the mother of a girl who has two mothers" and has not felt rejection for it, except from her mother-in-law, who wants the girl to "have a father."
Her daughter has never been frowned upon or despised in the spaces where she works. “Rather, she has become a leader,” she clarifies proudly.
Mariela's experience was part of the Panel "Diverse families: stories of non-hegemonic lives" organized by the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex) as part of the 14th edition of the Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia that, under the motto “Rewrite happiness”, seeks to defend all the rights of all people.
The Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia have been held since 2008 with the purpose of contributing to the recognition and guarantee of the sexual rights of all people without distinction, as an exercise of equity and social justice, and the development of comprehensive education of the sexuality, as a key tool for transformation and sustainable development.
The United Nations System in Cuba, through the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Development Program, has traditionally supported the holding of these conferences, including the current edition, which had the particularity of being carried out completely virtually and reached hundreds of people.
A son, a father, a mother and two stepfathers
Francisco Rodríguez Cruz, Paquito, recounts that, in his case, he had a process of building his sexual orientation that took time, "at that time, things happened like I married a woman and had a child."
Despite the contradictions, Paquito feels fortunate for the family that "we have been building collectively, my current partner, my son, my son's brothers, the mother of my son and her husband... With a lot of communication, dialogue, honesty and good premeditation, we have been forging solid family ties”.
He fondly remembers the moment when his son realized that he had two stepfathers. “Boys and girls, including adolescents, very quickly naturalize this situation of family diversity when there is affection, when there is affection, when there is communication,” he says.
This edition of the Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia is inserted in a particular political scenario, since the promulgation, in 2019, of a new constitutional text that explicitly recognizes sexual and reproductive rights.
In addition, the current Cuban Constitution shields the protection of the rights of LGBTIQ+ people with the regulation of the principle of equality and non-discrimination, and the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity as one of the causes of discrimination proscribed by law. .
According to the Organizing Committee of the event, also "the modification of the current Family Code is imminent, a legal norm in which several of the constitutionally enshrined rights will be developed, so raising awareness and educating the Cuban population is a social imperative aligned with the political will of the country.
Under the premise of "leaving no one behind", the UN in Cuba has contributed to the work of national institutions and civil society organizations in this legislative context. UNFPA and UNDP have supported the training of jurists who contribute to updating the Family Code, while accompanying the formulation of public policies and strengthening the capacities of national legal guidance services that serve the LGBTIQ+ population. .
In relation to the popular consultation that will precede the approval of the new Family Code, Paquito mentions that "very strong detractors will come out, patriarchal models on a very retrograde ideological basis that still coexists with us, and this will have to be combated - in the best of the word - with love, with openness and with visibility. We will have to show the reality: the best family is the one that is loved the most and not the one that is formed from a predetermined formula”.
For several years, national institutions have been carrying out communication, education and awareness work to eliminate prejudice and discriminatory attitudes.
In this process, United Nations agencies have contributed with actions to promote the health and sexual and reproductive rights of LGBTIQ+ populations; human resource training and knowledge management in health, sexual rights and comprehensive sexuality education; the visibility of these issues on the public agenda; the creation of alliances with government institutions and civil society organizations; conducting surveys to measure discriminatory attitudes of the population towards these populations; the empowerment of community networks, such as the Network of Men Who Have Sex with Men, the Network of Trans People, and the Network of People Living with HIV; and gender mainstreaming in the response to HIV, including prevention of and care for gender-based violence.
Another fundamental contribution has been the support for research on homophobic and transphobic violence in the school career of Cuban LGBTIQ+ activists and the updating and implementation of the Social Integration Strategy for Trans People in Cuba.
keep the affections
As children, Verde Gil and his sister made vignettes, as comics, about their lives. When Verde explained to his sister that he was a trans person, she recreated Verde's character in a male version. She thus made him see that she loved him, understood him, accepted him and assumed his gender identity.
Verde is 22 years old and has a family that has supported him at all times.
When he began to grow a beard, from the hormone treatment, his father offered him "that introductory talk about how to use the blades, about how I should shave so as not to cut myself." His mother, who previously accompanied him to buy clothes and transmitted her criteria on fashion, aesthetics and femininity, now buys pieces for him that make him feel comfortable with himself and with his body.
For Verde, the family “is the space where people find support and recognition. I knew that if I had conquered my home as a place where I was respected, where I could externalize my problems and my doubts, I would find strength to face other dilemmas that could arise socially”.
“When talking about non-hegemonic families, I think it refers to families that discard what becomes insubstantial in human relationships and keep all those affections, with all those ways of interacting in common to create beautiful things together, to have a peaceful life, to support each other, and they discard all this other part marked in molds that do not adapt to reality, to the diversity of the human being”.
Hope for homoaffective families
Hope is her name. The Spanish translation is Hope. She is an American living in Cuba and, together with Dachelys, she stars in an inspiring and powerful story: together they had a baby, Paulo, whose birth certificate endorses, for the first time in Cuba, double maternity.
Dachelys considers that a family is a space “of care, of love, of respect for difference, of help, of constant support. And it must be built from the will, from having a lasting life project built together”.
They do not consider themselves "so transgressive or different", Hope points out, because, although they are a couple of two women, they are two cisgender women who do not break "with supposed patterns", with "what is expected to be constructed as feminine " Dachelys specifies.
"Despite that, we have had to face many obstacles to have the same rights as other families and for our son to have them too," hence they call for "respect for the expression of gender identity" and the diversity of sexual orientations.
According to the Organizing Committee of the Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia: "Science supports that mothers and fathers in homoaffective families have the same capacity as heterosexuals to exercise authority, educate in socially accepted values, give love to their daughters and sons and achieve the security necessary for their development, so they are equally competent”.
When Cuba debates the proposal for the new Family Code - a process that should take place in the coming months - people like Mariela, Paquito, Verde, Hope and Dachelys will eagerly wait for this new law to strengthen the exercise of their rights and that of all families, with hegemonic design or not.
Prejudice, machismo and the heritage of a patriarchal culture still weigh heavily. But the aspiration to guarantee all rights for all people -and for all families- seems to be closer now.
