Las Horizontales

Las Horizontales were a group of sex workers in Havana, Cuba during the late 19th century that produced a newspaper, La Cebolla (1888). Gender studies scholar and Cuba expert, Amalia Cabezas identified this as the first documented sex worker organization in the Americas.{{Cite journal |last=Cabezas |first=Amalia L. |date=2019-04-29 |title=Latin American and Caribbean Sex Workers: Gains and challenges in the movement |url=https://www.antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/article/view/376 |journal=Anti-Trafficking Review |language=en |issue=12 |pages=37–56 |doi=10.14197/atr.201219123 |s2cid=159172969 |issn=2287-0113|doi-access=free }}

Emergence

Las Horizontales emerged in response to new legislation that both taxed and required sex workers to submit to gynecological exams.{{Cite journal |last=Sepúlveda |first=Asiel |date=2015 |title=Humor and Social Hygiene in Havana's Nineteenth-Century Cigarette Marquillas |url=http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn15/sepulveda-on-havana-19th-century-cigarette-marquillas |journal=Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide |language=en-gb |volume=14 |issue=3}} In their newspaper La Cebolla, they make reference to the fact that they were not eligible to vote and yet were still required to pay taxes. They complain about police extortion, being sent to the city's outskirts, and the government not recognizing their rights as women and workers who paid taxes.{{Cite web |title=Prostitution and Sex Tourism in Cuba |url=https://www.ascecuba.org/asce_proceedings/prostitution-and-sex-tourism-in-cuba/ |access-date=2023-03-14 |website=ASCE |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-03-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329215125/https://www.ascecuba.org/asce_proceedings/prostitution-and-sex-tourism-in-cuba/ |url-status=dead }}{{Cite journal |last=Beers |first=Mayra |date=2003 |title=Murder in San Isidro: Crime and Culture during the Second Cuban Republic |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cub.2004.0003 |journal=Cuban Studies |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=97–129 |doi=10.1353/cub.2004.0003 |s2cid=143910963 |issn=1548-2464|doi-access=free }}

''La Cebolla''

File:Official Newspaper of La Cebolla.pdf

The women who wrote issues of La Cebolla used pseudonyms, like La Madrileña, and La Isleña. Therefore some scholars have expressed doubts about the identity of the actual authors of La Cebolla articles. Based on her archival research, Beatriz Calvo Pena{{Cite journal |last=Calvo Pena |first=Beatriz |date=2005 |title=Prensa, politica y prostitucion en La Habana finisecular: El caso de La Cebolla y la "polemica de las meretrices" |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cub.2005.0043 |journal=Cuban Studies |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=23–49 |doi=10.1353/cub.2005.0043 |s2cid=258105485 |issn=1548-2464}} argues it was Victorino Reineri Jimeno, an anarchist journalist, who wrote all La Cebolla articles.{{Cite book |last=Cabezas |first=Amalia L. |title=Selling Sex in the City: A Global History of Prostitution, 1600s–2000s |chapter-url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004346253/B978-90-04-34624-6_020.xml |chapter=Prostitution in Havana |date=2017-08-23 |pages=414–440 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-34625-3 |language=en |doi=10.1163/9789004346253_017}}

In the four issues of La Cebolla that Las Horizontales published,{{Cite book |last=Sippial |first=Tiffany A. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5149/9781469608952_sippial |title=Prostitution, Modernity, and the Making of the Cuban Republic, 1840–1920 |date=2013-11-11 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |doi=10.5149/9781469608952_sippial |isbn=978-1-4696-0893-8}} they make reference to issues of colonialism, slavery, police brutality, and homosexuality.{{Cite book |last=Rodríguez |first=Juana María |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/9781478024118 |title=Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex |date=2023-04-07 |publisher=Duke University Press |doi=10.1215/9781478024118 |isbn=978-1-4780-2411-8}}{{Cite book |last=Cabezas |first=Amalia L. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/369180794 |title=Economies of desire : Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic |date=2009 |publisher=Temple Univ. Press |isbn=978-1-59213-751-0 |oclc=369180794}}

"The time has come for us to not tolerate with our silence those unjust fines imposed on us, sometimes because we do not want to give in to the lustful whims of the police, other times because we do not loosen the money he asks us for. Already the ominous time of take it and shut up has passed, not to return." (quoted and translated in Rodriguez, 2023, p. 79)

One issue includes a poem that describes a lesbian relationship that threatens the mayor's throat if he messes with her girlfriend.{{Cite web |title=Digital Library of the Caribbean |url=https://dloc.patron.uflib.ufl.edu/AA00020045/00003/zoom/1 |access-date=2023-03-14 |website=dloc.patron.uflib.ufl.edu}}

La gachí que yo camelo

si el Arcalde la multara

Le cortaba el tragadero

Aunque a Ceuta me mandaran (no. 2, p. 4) (quoted in Calvo Peña

2005, 26)

[The girl that I desire

If the Mayor fines her

I will cut his throat

Even if they send me to Ceuta] (quoted and translated in Rodriguez, 2023, p. 79)

Las Horizontales

Emergence

''La Cebolla''

See also

References

Further reading