«A hot dinner for a December that hits us all (…) a dinner for outsiders, those of us outside the family, those plagued, those who make the streets, sex workers, mattress workers, vendors of peanuts, those who wander”, posted Mel Herrera, one of the organizers of the event, days before having the dinner.
After the call was launched through social networks, donations of clothing, money, medicines, cleaning products and food began to arrive…
Good will prevailed so that trans/queer people, in street situations and from sex/gender dissidence in general, would come together harmoniously at Reina, number 416, Gervasio corner, Centro Habana.
“This is an act of love. The law is us in our desire to live: we exist, we are, we are and we will be. This has happened in Havana and hopefully in 2023 it can be replicated in many places in Cuba,” said actress, model and presenter Kiriam Gutiérrez Pérez during the welcome.
community cooperation
Said experience, “the first of its kind organized by LGBTIQ+ civil society independently”, according to the journalist and activist Maykel González Vivero, “is also an opportunity to strengthen community cooperation ties and create support networks to improve the quality of life of socially vulnerable groups.
“The night was marked by an energy of brotherhood where there was room for everything from the redheaded trans girl with her boyfriend to that mother with her two little ones who curiously asked about the meaning of the little flags that colored the place. The night before Christmas Eve, different people shared the same meal in the same space. They drank the same punch and held hands for several seconds to confess that no matter how hard times are, they are [email protected] to face them,” he told OnCuba the audiovisual producer Claudio Pelaez Sordo who was present with his camera.
rights of transgender people
Months before the Family Code was approved, several Cuban activists spoke out in favor of a comprehensive gender identity law that penalizes homophobia and transphobia and guarantees the right of trans people to have a protected free education and decent jobs. .
Also on November 28, the I Colloquium Transidentities, gender violence and human rights met in Havana with the participation of a broad representation of the community of trans people.
A day later and until today, the praise and gratitude of those who attended “the trans Christmas Eve of Havana” or of those inside and outside of Cuba who approve the making of this type of alliances are repeated.
«At one point in the evening one of the girls, a very shy one, saw me near her table, gently pulled me by my dress and said: ‘I’m so glad to be here. I do not want to leave’. She was almost one of the last to leave when only organizers and collaborators remained. The future will be communal. Or it won’t be,” wrote Mel Herrera.
More than twelve were around the table, in communion with love and respect. Only one difference: this dinner, the one on Friday, December 23, 2022, will not be the final.
