Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the development of cross-dressing festivals and their impact in the production of popular culture as a way of resistance to the heteronormative cultural policies in Cuba.

Paper long abstract:

Culture and cultural practices, have been a priority of the Cuban Revolution since its triumph in 1959 in order to build up a national identity. However, homosexuality, and any manifestation associated with it, which represented part of the segregated and discriminated minorities, found a barrier that was an extension of the inherited machismo from previous historical periods.

The recent recognition of drag queen festivals nationwide, for a hetero-normative society like Cuba, represents a breakthrough in a culture where sexual differences acceptance has been surrounded by the stigma carried through years of heterosexual norms. The appearance and spread of cross-dressing performances have developed in Cuba from underground clandestine gay parties to nationwide cultural festivals in the last fifty years of revolution, which can be compared to the same fait suffered by the Nueva Trova movement in the first decade of the Cuban revolution. Cross-dressing performances, like Nueva Trova music, have been stigmatized, persecuted and dismissed during years but finally it is finding its way into the national recognition as a "new" way of popular culture production.