Since 1965 the Cuban government began interning LGBT people in labor camps called the Military Units to Aid Production.
Beyond the camps discrimination against LGBT people was rampant in Cuban society, homosexuality would not be decriminalized until 1979.
Queer Cubans notably tried to escape the island either by enlisting in the Cuban military to be deployed abroad, or by emigrating in the Mariel boatlift where LGBT Cuban prisoners were specifically targeted by authorities to be given approval to emigrate.

Author Susana Pena has written about LGBT people in the Mariel boatlift and has speculated that their resettlement in Miami may have spurred on a revival of LGBT social life in Miami's South Beach.
Since 1965 the Cuban government began interning LGBT people in labor camps called the Military Units to Aid Production. Beyond the camps discrimination against LGBT people was rampant in Cuban society, homosexuality would not be decriminalized until 1979. Queer Cubans notably tried to escape the island either by enlisting in the Cuban military to be deployed abroad, or by emigrating in the Mariel boatlift where LGBT Cuban prisoners were specifically targeted by authorities to be given approval to emigrate.
Author Susana Pena has written about LGBT people in the Mariel boatlift and has speculated that their resettlement in Miami may have spurred on a revival of LGBT social life in Miami's South Beach.
Cuban exile