Some communists seem determined to prove that revolutionaries like Che were not homophobic in the 1960s, that those ideas are just imperialist lies, but it's not entirely true. Che was homophobic. It had no bearing on his policies and he did not persecute gay people, but yeah, he was prejudiced. But you know what? It doesn't fucking matter
Butch lesbian and transgender person saying this: I don't give a fuck that Che had homophobic prejudice in the 1960s. Sure, he probably would have renounced it like Fidel did, had he lived longer. But it had nothing to do with his policies, his legacy, nor his political theory. He didn't abuse or hate-crime gay people. So why do we insist on sanitising his character? Or pretending that he was somehow a queer ally or just not affected by historical attitudes, when even Aleida (his wife) called him a "machista"
The accusations that he was a racist are false, yes; Che was steadfastly an anti-racist and anti-imperialist who associated himself with non-white people and marginalised populations. Refuting those allegations is necessary, especially because it has direct relevance to his political role and is almost laughably false
But there seems to be almost an obsession with young communists trying to prove that Che didn't say anything homophobic, to the point of applying different standards to media that suggests he was. For exmaple, Juan Goytisolo's recollection of Che contemptuously calling a prominent and openly gay poet a "maricon" (faggot). I've seen people claim that no, this isn't a reliable source! And I will say that I know very little about Juan Goytisolo, but I've seen nobody give evidence to support the idea that he lied. Maybe Che did say it, maybe he didn't, none of us were there, but I know that people wouldn't be immediately jumping to claim it's a lie if it had been something positive instead
Most of us consider Jon Lee Anderson's biography reliable, but conveniently ignore that he claimed Che and Fidel were homophobic. I have a lot of problems with Anderson's historical analysis, particularly as he represents Fidel and interprets Cuba's "authoritarian" policies, but I have real arguments and basis for that criticism. I'm obviously not going to go into it now, but most communists here regard Anderson's representation of Che as correct yet simultaneously deny Che's prejudice: that is a contradiction
The only thing this behaviour does is reinforce the idea that the revolutionaries we admire must adhere to our contemporary standards in order to be respected or admired. To me it resembles liberal purity politics. Now, don't get me wrong, the situation would be different if Che was going around killing or abusing gay people (as anti-communists say). Those claims are certainly dangerous and should absolutely be resisted. But we need to have clear priorities and understand what is relevant to his policies and legacies, what should we criticise and what should we admire. If he said faggot a couple of times and viewed homosexuality in a negative way, yet did not apply these attitudes to his political policy / theory in any way shape or form, why do we keep obsessing over it? We can acknowledge that those attitudes of his were harmful without pretending they didn't exist
Liberals and reactionaries of all kinds won't somehow take our arguments more seriously if we appear so desperate to purify all our revolutionaries. It's bad practice as people who claim to care about history, authenticity, or principle. And we should know what to prioritise. This doesn't mean we need to pretend it was harmless, more so that we need to know what relates to Che's legacy and how to formulate our arguments instead of trying to make Che seem like a 21st century queer activist. He was a cisgender, heterosexual man born in 1928 and that is going to show
All this to say: stop trying to sanitise Che's character for the sake of your comfort
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