The Communist Closet

Secrecy, Sexuality, and Ideology in the Cuban Cold War

Bibliographic Data

ID2801545
AuthorsJeff Lambe (0000-0002-8390-2477, corresponding author), Jennifer L Lambe
Year2024
Volume104
Issue2
Pages271-305
Publication date2024-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-11085469
OpenAlexW4390344988
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited39

Why were homosexuality and Communism so closely knit together in the discursive logic of the Cold War? This article explores the convergence of sexuality and ideology in scholarly and popular conversations about the Cuban Revolution. These included a transnational panic over the purported links between homosexuality and Communism, psychiatric efforts in Cuba and the Cuban exile community to link homosexuality to suspicious ideological affiliations (Communist or anti-Communist), and a shared concern with rooting out covert political threats on both sides of the Florida Straits. Situating Cuba in hemispheric perspective, I propose that secrecy itself was at issue in the widespread and conjoined preoccupation with ideology and sexuality. This turned the closet, on the one hand, and coming out, on the other, into all-purpose, politically charged signifiers in Cuban culture writ large

Closet · Communism · Covert · Homosexuality · Human sexuality · Ideology · Lesbian · Political science · Politics · Secrecy · Sociology · Cuban History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Philosophy

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