Echoes of Cuba’s Homophobic 2012 Census

Echoes of Cuba's Homophobic 2012 Census
November 26, 2013
Isbel Diaz Torres

HAVANA TIMES – Last year, I published a post condemning how the
Population and Household Census then conducted in Cuba had crudely
manipulated information in order to conceal the existence of homosexual
couples living together in the country.

As you may recall, it was revealed at the time that any reference to
same-sex couples had been crossed out during the processing of forms
submitted by census takers and that, next to the information, they had
written an explanatory note reading something along the lines of
"couples must be of opposite sexes."

A year later, the final results of the census have begun to be
published. As it turns out, marital status indices (calculated on the
basis of questions put to anyone over the age of 12) reveal that "56.8 %
of the country's population is married; 21.7 % declared that they are
living together."

Though many homosexual couples declared that they were living together
(and this information was written down on the questionnaire), the census
takers were instructed to erase this information upon leaving the home
in question.

As such, we members of the gay community who publicly assume our sexual
orientation and declare to be living together under the same roof aren't
included in that 21.7 %

I've been in a stable relationship for eleven years and have been living
with my partner for two, but that doesn't count as "living together" for
Cuba's bureaucracy.

It doesn't look as though these deliberate distortions of information
will be rectified any time soon. According to reliable sources (which I
am unable to reveal), as a result of complaints registered following
last year's census, the census director, Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga,
promised that he would conduct a survey in 2013 to collect information
exclusively on these and other aspects of the LGBT community.

November is coming to an end and we've seen no surveys for Cuba's gay
community. We continue to be invisible on paper, even though we are
portrayed in TV soaps. We're going to be hard pressed to see any
inclusive and non-discriminatory policies if the State isn't even
interested in collecting information about us.

Source: "Echoes of Cuba's Homophobic 2012 Census - Havana Times.org" -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=100289