For queer couples in Cuba, moments alone are few and far between, lived out in stolen away places. Rafael and Joaquín know this intimately: The pair, together for seven years, have long found creative ways of being alone in a country where their love cannot be experienced at home around their families. Friends occasionally let them crash for the night so that they can sleep next to one another. Otherwise, they’ll meet in a nearby forest after work, hopping a fence to spend time alone. “This wood was our haven. There was no other way to be together,” Joaquín says. “Society forces us to hide.” For his partner, Rafael, this is the hardest part of being gay in Cuba: the possibility of never being able to live openly together as a couple.

From a legal perspective, Cuba appears to be a leading example of LGBTQ progress in the Caribbean. The Cuban government has moved to grant rights and protections to the community, decriminalizing gay sex in 1979 and offering gender-affirming surgeries free of charge since 2008. The country made headlines in 2018 for moving closer to legalizing same-sex marriage, initially changing the governmental definition in the Constitution from a “union between one man and one woman” to a union between “two people with absolutely equal rights and obligations.” (The proposed change was soon dropped due to public pressure.) Other changes prohibit all discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity and sexual orientation. In May 2019 the government announced that the Union of Jurists of Cuba is working on a new Family Code to address same-sex marriage.

It hasn’t always been this way. The Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro between 1953 and 1959, brought about great suffering for queer Cubans. After Castro assumed military and political control over the country, queer people were imprisoned in concentration camps in the 1960s without charge or trial; they were confined to forced labour. Homophobia was institutionalized until more tolerant policies emerged in the late 1970s thanks to the People’s Supreme Court.

But homophobia remains pervasive. Behind all of the LGBTQ progress in Cuba is the daily stigma and discrimination faced by queer and trans people in the country.

Rafael, 35, and Joaquín, 42, grew up in the same neighbourhood on the outskirts of Havana, where they met seven years ago. (Their names have been changed to protect their privacy.) They believe life as gay men is not as bad as it used to be—they no longer have to fear being imprisoned, for instance, because of their sexual orientation. But they remain realistic about the challenges facing their community in a society that is still quite hostile toward them. A traditional sense of family, widespread discrimination and straightness-as-the-default institutionally stand in the way of full acceptance of Cuban LGBTQ individuals and couples.

The social stigma affecting queer people starts early in life—so much so that many remain closeted for fear of reprisals. Joaquín entered his first gay relationship when he was 33 years old. “It was very late,” he says. His youth was a particularly lonely one—he rarely went out with friends because he worried people might find out he was gay. “I stayed home doing nothing while everyone else was enjoying life. I was hiding. I completely missed out on my youth, and I will never get that time back.” At home, meanwhile, Joaquín’s father pressured him to find a girlfriend. “I was scared to tell him the truth, scared that he would hate me. I was at a point where I didn’t even want to live anymore.” After Joaquín began his first relationship with a man, it became too much for him to bear and he decided to tell his parents he was gay. “I started crying and the truth came out. From that moment on, I have been feeling like a new person,” he says. “My dad told me, ‘If I loved you before, I love you even more now.’ We have had an amazing relationship since.”

While Rafael’s family did not accept him at first, they eventually came around. He and Joaquín feel privileged about their situation. In Cuba, family remains at the centre of social life. “Lots of gay people go through very unpleasant and unfair situations with their families,” Joaquín says. “Homosexuality is seen as a flaw—the worst one,” adds Rafael.