LGBT rights in Cuba visibility and gender transgressions themselves constituted a central part of the problem identified by the revolution. Even during the severest period of enforcement, Marvin Leiner reminds us, private homosexual expression was never the main target. Rather, "... the major concern, as it had always been, was with the public display of homosexuality." Many of the progressive LGBT persons who remained in Cuba became involved in counter-revolutionary activities, independently or through encouragement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and were jailed. The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, commando attacks from Florida bases, and internal CIA-sponsored subversion created in Cuba an increased
Friends of Democratic Cuba after the FDC [Friends of Democratic Cuba] was created, it was put out of business by strong criticism from prominent Cubans. There was evidence that the FDC was organized strictly for the personal gain of the promoters." Friends of Democratic Cuba Friends of Democratic Cuba was formed on January 6, 1961 to serve as the fund-raising arm of anti-Castro activist Sergio Arcacha Smith's New Orleans' branch of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC). According to an October 26, 1967 CIA document: "This organization was created by several New Orleans business and political figures, including the deceased former FBI agent, Guy BANISTER,