Rio Gay Pride Parade brings over one million
Two transvestites pose during the gay pride parade at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on November 18, 2012.
Brazil's gay rights Rainbow Group said that over one million people attended Rio de Janeiro's Gay Pride Parade on Sunday, BBC News reported. The parade was a party but also aimed to highlight homophobia that plagues Brazilian society.
"The Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender community spends most of the year in Brazil hiding, deprived of many of their rights," activist Julio Moreira told Jornal do Brasil. "We need to discuss this issue in the schools and in the National Congress."
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Amid the activism was also a massive street party, the AFP reported, with techno music, wigs and carnival costumes.
Fifteen floats blaring music lined the beach, Gay Star News reported.
Despite Brazil's reputation as a liberal place, the Roman Catholic country has seen an explosion of evangelical Christian group membership in the past decades, the AFP said.
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