The prospect of passing through customs at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport on May 19 with several interviews of LGBT rights advocates in Cuba who openly criticized their government saved to my phone was something that made me anxious ahead of my scheduled departure. A picture of a poster declaring Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro who has publicly spearheaded LGBT rights on the Communist island, a “fraud” that I had uploaded to my laptop several days earlier only exacerbated the anxiety.
I discreetly placed my phone with the potentially suspect interviews into my bag before I walked up to the customs booths. I took a couple of deep breaths before approaching a young agent.
She quickly examined my passport before stamping the paper press visa that had allowed me to work as an “authorized” journalist for an LGBT publication in her country. She said “buen viaje” and within 10 minutes I was sitting in a small restaurant on the other side of the security checkpoint where I ordered a cheese sandwich, a Cuban coffee and one last shot of ron blanco. I then transcribed an interview with a transgender woman who told me her government wants to “destroy us.”
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