Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians marched in Sao Paulo on June 17 in the city’s 10th Annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March, which organizers said was the world’s largest pride event. The police gave the French wire service AFP an estimate of 3 million participants, at least 500,000 more than in 2005. Organizers had been afraid turnout would be lower because for the first time the event was being held on Saturday rather than Sunday, to avoid conflict with the Australia-Brazil World Cup soccer match, held in Germany on June 18. Many participants wore the national team’s colors.
Despite the festive nature of the march, the organizers stressed a call for an end to attacks on gays. A homosexual, male or female, is murdered every three days in Brazil because of sexual orientation, according to Brazilian Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March Association spokesperson Nelson Matias Pereira. [El Universal (Caracas) 6/17/06; El Nuevo Herald 6/17/06 from AP]
Also on June 17, thousands of Mexicans marched for three hours from the Angel of Independence to the central Zocalo plaza in Mexico City’s 28th pride event. As in past years, many participants called for legislation recognizing domestic partnerships, while some demanded the right to same-sex marriage. Some focused on the July 2 presidential and congressional elections. The center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)–whose presidential campaign, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is in a virtual tie in the polls with Felipe Calderon of the center-right National Action Party (PAN)–had a float with parasols in its yellow and black colors. “For prevention, Calderon in a condom,” some marchers chanted. But after nine years of PRD government in Mexico City, some participants warned: “Pay attention and analyze, because [the candidates] offer and then don’t deliver anything.”
The march included a contingents of sex workers; supporters of The Other Campaign of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which is boycotting the elections; and a “condommobile” and the distribution of 80,000 condoms by the National Center for Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS. In the Zocalo, the actress Rocio Banquells was crowned queen of sexual diversity, receiving the scepter from last year’s queen, the pop singer Gloria Trevi.
About 1,000 people participated in the fourth annual pride march in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan, demanding an end to repression by state and local police. [La Jornada (Mexico) 6/18/06; El Universal (Mexico City) 6/18/06]
Some 200 people turned out for a pride march in Guatemala City’s Historic Center on June 24. “We demand that we be recognized as the people we are,” said Albertina Carrera, a representative of a lesbian group. “We have the right to be able to have families, which is why we’re asking the government to create a bill in which we are not only recognized but also allowed to adopt children and have recognition as families.” [Univision 6/24/06 from AFP]
The pride march came as transgender prostitutes in the capital were starting to organize. The Queens of the Night Collective held its first political forum recently to address security issues. Seven cross-dressing prostitutes were murdered in Guatemala last year; since about 1,200 cross-dressers work as prostitutes in Guatemala, the group has a murder rate 17 times higher than the national average, 35 murders per 100,000 people. The collective hopes to cut down the discrimination and violence, and get its members off the dangerous streets. [Miami Herald 6/20/06]
Luis Eduardo Garzon, the leftist mayor of Bogota, Colombia, plans to open the city’s first community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people on June 28, International Pride Day (marking the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall rebellion in New York). The center will be in the capital’s northern Chapinero district, which features 106 of the city’s 180 gay establishments, according to district mayor Angelica Lozano. [El Tiempo (Bogota) 6/23/06]
Activists in Santa Fe, capital of Argentina’s central Santa Fe province, plan to hold the city’s first pride march on June 28, starting at 5 pm in the central Plaza del Soldado Argentino. Spokespeople for the nongovernmental organization Vox said the focus would be on fighting against discrimination and the Misdemeanor Law. Organizers expect demonstrators to come from other cities, including Rosario and Parana; they said they will have masks to distribute to participants who want to conceal their identity, as has been done for the first pride marches in some other places. [La Cronica (Buenos Aires) 6/20/06]