Cuban unions will participate in conga against homophobia for the first time

Cuban unions will participate in conga against homophobia for the first time The General Secretary of the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba, Ulises Guilarte De Nacimiento, said Wednesday that unions will participate for the first time in the traditional conga against homophobia and trans-phobia that will march on Saturday, May 9, along the central Avenue 23 in Havana. Ulises Guilarte was present throughout the day and minutes before the end of the meeting made the announcement of the participation of trade unions in the Conga against Homophobia. “The unions will also accompany the march on Saturday, a group of us have agreed on that,” said the highest union leader shortly before the conclusion of the scientific conference held at the headquarters of the CTC [Central de Trabajadores de Cuba – Central Union of Cuba] as part of the 8th Cuban Drive against Homophobia. This year the drive is aimed at the promotion of workplaces, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. This unprecedented rapprochement between the union movement and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people in our country, received an ovation from the audience participating in the meeting. The meeting was attended by about 300 union leaders, activists of the LGBTI community and by social science professionals from Cuba, from other Latin American countries and from the United States. “We all agree that not necessarily because we the leaders of the CTC say so, there will be an immediate understanding or an awareness of all these issues,” added Guilarte De Nacimiento. He further said that fighting homophobia “will be a struggle that will challenge the persuasiveness of the organization, its argumentation capacity, and especially its commitment and conviction” to incorporate more people each day to “this important battle you are leading. “ “What I can assure you is that you will feel the ongoing support of the CTC and its unions,” he said. Regarding the partnership with the main organizer of the conference, the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), the union leader stressed their commitment to strengthen “interrelations, cooperation and integration in the common purpose that unites us to defend rights; rights which in our case have their practical expression in the labor scenario where we Cuban workers and unions act.” More than 300 participants filled the Alfredo Lopez Meeting Room. Guilarte also appreciated being able to receive “very extensive and valuable testimonial information, as well as information based on scientific and academic research that supports very accurately the value and nature of this defense must make of our workers, and the inclusion we must ensure for the benefit of our entire society.“ Ulises Guilarte thanked the participants and speakers for what he described as “an important contribution to knowledge and the deepening of the elements of this great platform for action“. He stressed “the need to continue articulating and building a majority consensus that allows us incorporate everyone to this battle.“ During the scientific meeting that filled up the Alfredo Lopez Meeting Room in the building called Palacio de los Trabajadores, Mariela Castro Espín, director of Cenesex, also intervened. In the two panels in session speakers from Cuba, Uruguay, Argentina and the United States presented research results and testimonies from activism which generated debates and questions from the audience also from several countries. For me, after more than two decades in *Trabajadores*, newspaper of the CTC, and over five years as an LGBTI rights activist, it was very emotional to see both causes finally joining efforts.