Revolutionary positions: Sexuality and gender in Cuba and beyond

Abstract

This essay opens new perspectives on the Cuban Revolution by considering its global impact through the lens of gender and sexuality. This framework provides important new insights into the rise of the New Left and the anticommunist Right by centering ideas of gender, sexuality, and the family. Locating the Cuban Revolution alongside other contemporary struggles against racism and imperialism, the essay argues that gender and sexuality were crucial terrains of struggle that demonstrate the complexity of the Cold War in the Global South. Moreover, this point of view challenges long-standing perceptions of revolutionary Cuba as “isolated” by showing how the island precipitated and was embedded in transnational networks and flows of people and ideas, including solidarity campaigns, military missions, and forms of cultural diplomacy.