The Cuban film “In
the Wrong Body” (“En el Cuerpo Equivocado”) had its U.S.
premier at San Francisco State University’s Knuth Hall Nov. 3. It had
its Los Angeles premier at the Downtown Independent Theater Nov. 9.
The film tour made an additional stop at the Art Theater of Long
Beach on Nov. 12.
ANSWER, the
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and the Clinica
Martin-Baro organized the San Francisco screening. The SFSU College
of Ethnic Studies, Latina/o Studies Department, Cuba Educational
Project and Union Salvadorena de Estudiantes Universitarios
co-sponsored the event. Around 200 people attended.
Cuba has made
significant progress in promoting acceptance of transgender
individuals, although deeply rooted prejudices remain to some degree.
That was the message filmmaker Marilyn Solaya brought to the West
Coast premiers.
Solaya was flown to
the U.S. from Cuba by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and
End Racism), of which the Party for Socialism and Liberation is a
member. ANSWER had planned to fly both Solaya and Susel to the United
States for the premiers. Unfortunately, Susel could not come because
she was still mourning for her mother, who died earlier this year.
Susel had devoted the past 10 years to providing care for her.
Solaya was only
barely able to attend, as the U.S. government delayed approving her
visa. She arrived in the United States less than 24 hours before the
screening was scheduled to begin.
“In the Wrong
Body” takes viewers into the private life of Mavi Susel, who
received the first sex-reassignment surgery in Cuba in 1988. Filmed
20 years later, it shows Susel as she goes through the routines of
her daily life, while baring her soul about the misunderstanding and
scorn she has faced as a transgender person. At several points she
expresses regret that her struggle with social rejection prevented
her from studying and having a career.
Solaya combines
this real-life footage with re-created scenes from Susel’s childhood,
which dramatize her rejection by her father, taunting and abuse by
schoolmates and a rape in the boys’ locker room. In another dramatic
scene, a young Susel, walks barefoot and alone down a hospital
corridor and into an operating room. Looking like an angel entering
heaven, she contemplates the bright lights over the surgical table
and peacefully lies down on the cold steel.
At different points
in the film Solaya uses mannequins as a metaphor for the way people
judge others by their outward form. She then takes us into a
mannequin factory where the workers are dressed like surgeons, to
drive home the idea that genders, “masculinities and
femininities,” are social constructs.
Solaya read a
moving statement by Susel, in which she exhorted the crowd to
transcend gender, and to evaluate themselves as “human beings”
rather than as “men and or women.”
After the film
showings, Solaya took questions from the audiences, which included
supporters of the Cuban Revolution as well as students and workers
from the LGBT community. She said that although the documentary was
filmed in just 18 days, it was the product of nine years of research,
during which she and Mavi Susel became close friends.
Solaya explained
that just as in other countries, Cuba has a legacy of racism,
patriarchy and homophobia that the Cuban government and people have
been taking measures to overcome. Especially since the latter part of
the 1980s, when CENESEX (National Sexual Education Center of Cuba)
was created, the government has made progress in educating the public
about LGBT oppression. Sixteen more sex-reassignment operations, all
paid for by the socialist state, have been performed since Mavi Susel
bravely fought for her right to be seen by society as the woman she
had always been.
In the past four
years, Cuba has held an annual “Day Against Homophobia!”
The
audiences loudly applauded the film and its director.
The ANSWER Coalition and the
National Committee to Free the Five, along with other organizations,
including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, are hosting Marilyn
Solaya’s U.S. film tour. These organizations will continue to hold
screenings of the documentary in coming weeks and months to raise
workers’ consciousness about transgender rights and the
accomplishments of socialism in Cuba.
