The “Che of the gays” bids farewell to Fidel Castro

Chilean LGBTQ+ activist and writer Víctor Hugo Robles, known as "the Che Guevara of the gays," shared with Presentes a chronicle of his visits to Cuba, where he participated in the 7th Cuban Day Against Homophobia, as a way of bidding farewell to the Commander. "We, the dissident sexual minorities, value the historic recognition and political rejection..."

November 26, 2016

Chilean LGBTQ+ activist and writer Víctor Hugo Robles, known as "the Che Guevara of the gays," shared with Presentes a chronicle of his visits to Cuba, where he participated in the 7th Cuban Day Against Homophobia as a way of bidding farewell to the Commander. "We, the dissident LGBTQ+ community, value Fidel Castro's historic recognition and political rejection of the oppression of homosexuals in the early days of the Cuban Revolution."

Cover photo: Álvaro Hoppe

“In death there are gazes that continue to live,

For those who live and die fighting,

From their close distance… they continue to watch us.”

Raúl Portal

On November 25, 2016, at 10:20 p.m. Cuban time, the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, passed away. From a remote corner of Santiago, Chile, we send our love and respect to the people of Cuba, to our comrades in the Communist Party, and to our friends and allies in the LGBTQ+ community who have driven a sustained and intense "Revolution within the Revolution." "I don't know if he believes heaven on earth is possible. What he does believe is that it's impossible not to fight for it. His dignity, his sense of principles, his vision of history will prevail," said the singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez today. We, the LGBTQ+ community, value Fidel Castro's historic recognition and political rejection of the oppression of homosexuals in the early days of the Cuban Revolution, and we declare ourselves always supportive of the work carried out by Mariela Castro Espín at the National Center for Sex Education in Cuba.

Paying just tribute to Fidel Castro and Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, I recall through these lines and images our anarchist transvestite salute to Fidel in Chile in November 1996, as well as my last crazy visit to Cuba, where a group of gay, lesbian, and trans people from Latin America and the Caribbean demanded an end to the economic blockade of the island, in addition to celebrating its social, cultural, and sexual progress. The same controversial event where I marched through the streets of Havana with a dead (and resurrected) Che Guevara, starring in a wild performance, which Fidel himself surely watched through the international press. Until forever, Comandante!

A feathered Che Guevara walking the streets of Havana

“That photo hurts, man, it hurts a lot,” Mariela Castro Espín said anxiously when she noticed the image of Ernesto Guevara I was carrying at the Conga Against Homophobia held in Havana in May 2014. And yes, it hurt, it hurt a lot, because it was the last photo of the heroic guerrilla fighter who died in Bolivia. A final image after his last breath, his final farewell, an emblematic memory of Che's serene gaze that is striking for its similarity to the last image of Jesus Christ himself dying on the cross, Mantegna's Dead Christ or Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp. Then, intertwining Christian iconography with revolutionary legends of today and always, I remember resolutely marching through the streets of Havana with a resurrected (and feathered) Che in a crazy performance that caught the attention of the national and international activists present, in addition to the surprise and concern of the foreign press.

Victor Hugo Robles at the Cuban Day Against Homophobia, Havana, 2014

The unforgettable conga, a joyful and chaotic march, armed with shouts, slogans, music, dance, and iconic photographs of Fidel Castro Ruz and Vilma Espín, culminated with the heartfelt words of Mariela Castro Espín, Director of the National Center for Sex Education of Cuba (CENESEX). She delivered a powerful speech emphasizing the historical importance of opening public debates on sexual rights and gender identities in a Cuba navigating various paths of determined revolution within the revolution. There, seeking to continue Mariela Castro's political thread and encouraged by the request of the local organizers, I took the floor to greet those present, conveying solidarity from the Chilean LGBTQ+ community and attempting to explain the reasons for my striking feathered performance.

“Che Guevara has not died because he lives among us. Che will always inspire our struggles for respect, justice, and dignity,” I exclaimed in a packed Pabellón Cuba, filled with young people eager for celebration and emancipation. To that same excited crowd, I explained that Che’s body had been hidden—disappeared—for almost 30 years in Bolivia, and that only on June 28, 1997, “International Pride Day,” was it discovered beneath an airstrip in Valle Grande. Symbolically, I reasoned, his body, his struggle, his guerrilla utopia, emerged from the earth seeking to be reincarnated in the political, social, and cultural utopias of gay, lesbian, and transgender people in Latin America who demand spaces of respect and freedom. I concluded my applauded and impromptu speech with frenetic cheers for Fidel Castro, Mariela, and the Cuban Revolution. Thunderous, sincere and intense cheers that dispelled suspicions or concerns regarding the libertarian meaning of my crazy performance with the feathered Che marching through the streets of Havana.

After the speeches, Mariela Castro acknowledged my moving remarks and invited the audience to participate in the various artistic and cultural activities of the 7th Cuban Day Against Homophobia, held in Cuba in conjunction with the 6th International Conference of Gays, Lesbians, and Transgender People of Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC). Music, dance, theater, film, and unprecedented political programs on local television made the 2014 edition of the Cuban Day Against Homophobia the most vibrant, controversial, and unforgettable in recent memory.

The controversy arose not only from the political and sexual themes addressed at the ILGALAC International Conference held in the coastal town of Varadero, but also from the activities that took place in Havana during the Day Against Homophobia, and particularly from the reactions of the international press, which highlighted my audacious performance, attributing various meanings to it. On the one hand, international media outlets—particularly those in Miami—hostile to the Cuban Revolution and to the work carried out by Mariela Castro Espín at the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) in Cuba, used my bold presence and intervention to criticize Mariela Castro's audacity, headlining their articles with: “Photo of dead Che leads Mariela Castro's march.” Similarly, others expressed little understanding of the unprecedented political and cultural intersection of a gay Che Guevara being present in Havana. This lack of reasoning was evident in the questioning of the use of Che's figure in today's sexual struggles because – they argued – Ernesto Guevara would have been a decidedly homophobic military man and because he would not support the causes of gender and sexual diversity that the renowned sexologist Mariela Castro Espín promotes with exciting enthusiasm.

Victor Hugo Robles with Mariela Castro Espin.

The criticism, media exploitation, and manipulated interpretation of my speech in Havana were predictable considering the media onslaught that the Cuban Revolution has experienced for more than fifty years, coupled with the economic blockade and the lack of understanding of the social, aesthetic, and cultural processes that develop within the sexual diversity movement in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly in Cuba. So, addressing the criticism of the use (or abuse) of Che Guevara's image during those historic events in Havana in 2014, Cuban journalist and LGBTQ+ activist Francisco Rodríguez Cruz told the Chilean press: “I think it was useful because, ultimately, that's what we activists are here for: to shake up thinking, to shake up people's sensibilities, and to make them ask themselves why this or that is done. It's important to stir people's consciences, and I think the performance of 'The Gay Che' helped us to question the relevance and importance of Che in the struggles to combat homophobia from all angles and from all political, aesthetic, and ideological perspectives.”

Mariela Castro herself, during an important protocol visit to Santiago, Chile in February 2015 in the context of an international meeting of UN Women, met with local sexual diversity activists at the Residence of the Cuban Ambassador in Chile and recalled the participation of "The Gay Che" in the Cuban Days Against Homophobia, praising the unforgettable intervention of the homosexual Che in the streets of Havana, thus encouraging the aesthetic-cultural struggles that, from particular and legitimate contemporary feelings, interpret the libertarian struggles of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna.

After the meeting, which included Erika Montecinos from Rompiendo el Silencio, Luis Larraín and Karen Atala from Fundación Iguales, I immortalized the reunion with Mariela Castro Espín next to a historic photograph of Fidel Castro Ruz's first visit to Chile, meeting –in the same Cuban diplomatic residence– with Salvador Allende Gossen and his daughter Beatriz Allende Bussi.

Source: “The Diary of Che Gay in Chile”, Siempreviva Ediciones, Santiago de Chile, August 2015.

We are Present

We are committed to a type of journalism that delves deeply into the realm of the world and offers in-depth research, combined with new technologies and narrative formats. We want the protagonists, their stories, and their struggles to be present.