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
Human rights in Cuba have relatively high representation in the country, with women holding 48.9% of the parliamentary seats in the Cuban National Assembly. The Cuban Foundation for Human Rights, directed by Juan Carlos González Leiva, reports torture of female prisoners in Cuba. About the torture in Cuba, in 2005 a group of culture personalities, including several Nobel Prize laureates, have signed an appeal on "The Guardian" in defense of Cuba, stating that "the government of the US has no moral authority to elect itself as the judge over human rights in Cuba, where there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture