The theater lights dim and a Brazilian supermodel takes to the stage, tanned legs emerging from a skintight miniskirt.
In the audience, an A to Z of Rio de Janeiro’s great and good: pop stars, sports stars, soap stars and would-be stars, flanked by an army of local paparazzi. Clutching a microphone, the model addresses the crowd.
“My name is Lea and I am a transsexual,” she says, triggering a frenzy of applause and whistles.
The model in question is Lea T, Brazil’s first transsexual supermodel, and this is the champagne-soaked launch party for Rio’s inaugural diversity week — a celebration of the city’s cultural and ethnic differences and an attempt to position Rio as the global capital of gay tourism.
“Rio is a city without prejudice,” Rio De Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes said as he arrived at the event. “It is an open city that accepts everything with an open heart.”
Recent months have seen an avalanche of new lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-friendly initiatives in Rio: vocational training courses for transvestites, anti-bullying projects aimed at gay and lesbian students and new legislation outlawing discrimination in the city’s nightclubs.
In February, the mayor -announced the creation of a special diversity secretariat headed by Carlos Tufvesson, a gay, multilingual fashion designer.
Rio, says Tufvesson, is not only “the sexiest destination on Earth,” but also a place where tolerance is natural. Just as the city staged important protests against the military dictatorship during the 1960s, Rio is again blazing a trail for civil rights, he said.
The initiatives are also a potential moneyspinner. Last year, 25 percent of Rio’s tourists, or about 880,000 people, were gay. The city’s tourist board hopes to drive that number even higher and has published glossy, rainbow-colored brochures packed with pictures of muscle-bound men and slogans urging tourists to “live the Rio sensation.”
“Personally I think that anyone who wants to make money could open any kind of gay establishment in Rio because it is a dead certain return,” Tufvesson said. “There is a big demand for this market still. Rio is now part of the gay calendar.”
In 2007, Buenos Aires stole a march on Rio, opening what it claimed was Latin America’s first luxury gay hotel. However, Rio is a “naturally” LGBT-friendly city, Tufvesson said, making “ghettoization” unnecessary.
“Do we need to have gay restaurants? Gay food? Gay waiters? Here in Rio, my love, you can [kiss anywhere]. Otherwise we’ll go there and close them down. Our municipal laws are strong,” Tufvesson said.
Resistance to the government’s progressive stance remains, predominantly among the religious right. Earlier this month, one Catholic MP attacked attempts to alter state legislation that would criminalize discrimination.
“Look, if we are all equal, with the same rights, I also have to have the right to not want a homosexual employee in my company,” the MP said, before being forced to make a public retraction by fellow politicians.
Silas Malafaia, a prominent local evangelist, went a step further last year, erecting 600 advertising hoardings around Rio emblazoned with the phrase: “In defense of the family and the preservation of the human race: God made men and women.”
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