Exciting things in Cuba! The nuclear family has been abolished and Cuba recognizes a family as a group of people who love each other. That means your found family is a legally recognized family with all the rights and protections that entails. Gay couples, single parents (and so on) can now have their adopted children recognized as next of kin.
Gay relationships had been decriminalized since around the late 80′s, after Fidel Castro officially apologized for his role in their oppression and made LGBT education a part of the island’s culture, but this code officially protects it. Adoption is ratified, but adoption in exchange for money is illegal to prevent extortion of poor/working mothers and child traffiking.
The code has also enshrined trans healthcare and protections for children running away from abuse. Their parents can not treat them as property but as protected individuals under the state.
Around 6 million Cubans participated in the referendum, 66% of them voting yes. The referendum has been discussed for a while at local levels (ie community centers) as well as in government hearings.
I know Cuba still maintains a capitalist mode of production, but honestly it is good seeing a country in the global south making its own decisions on progressive issues without the pinkwashing efforts of the west, as can be seen in my own country Nigeria. Obama’s sanctions on us for our government’s anti-LGBT sentiment increased homophobic violence in the country and even made conditions worse for both queer and cishet Nigerians. Sanctions never work, regardless of the nation or situation. They only crush the marginalized in the process.
Self determination like what we see in Cuba is extremely important. The people need to have a say, not with the influence of a foreign government that is letting trans people die on a whim (looking at you US and UK).
So in summary, this is exciting news for Cuba and can show us what a future society with true egalitarian values. “El amor ya es ley!”
To learn more, Leslie Feinberg wrote a fantastic book called “Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba ”. Also the official government statement on the code can be found here
I don’t know how to convey that Serial Experiments Lain is in my brain. I cannot stop thinking about the implications of the loneliness of the internet age, how connected and isolated we are, Lain struggling with existing as a person that desires love and attention but is forgettable/undesirable to contemporary society. I love how she moves through the confusion of hiding the “darker” parts of her but they still show up because she only represses it. I love how utterly painful and amazing it is as someone who struggles with those things. I love how it ends with a compromise between both ‘worlds’, but still shows that .we still need to exist regardless of how painful it is.
