Top Gay Pride Parades in South America
South America knows how to throw a party, and when it comes to gay pride, the region puts some of the biggest celebrations in the world, drawing activists and revelers from around the globe to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community in living color. The festivities easily rival those in North America and Western Europe, and they will pull you in with their kaleidoscopic energy and messages of love and acceptance.
Although most countries in South America have very conservative attitudes about homosexuality, largely due to the strong influence of the Catholic Church, most have developed quite progressive LGBTQ-friendly laws and celebrate gay pride events each year. In celebration of pride month, we’ve pulled together a list of the best gay pride parades in South America.
São Paulo Pride – Brazil
Forget Madrid, New York, San Francisco, London, and Toronto – São Paulo Pride is the largest gay pride festival in the world. It’s been recognized as such in the Guinness Book of World Records, with an estimated attendance of 3 to 5 million people each year.
The Parada do Orgulho LGBT de São Paulo takes place every year in May or June. It began in 1997 with just 2,000 participants as a modest event to increase visibility for the LGBTQ community and has grown significantly since. Despite its size and popularity, the parade continues to project a strong social and political message: this year’s Pride is dedicated to ’50 Years of Stonewall’.
The parade makes its way through the city’s main artery, Avenida Paulista, eventually reaching Praça Roosevelt, where revelers are welcomed for a public concert. Our best advice is to arrive earlier in the day to get a good spot outside the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) on Avenida Paulista. After the festivities, most will head to Brazil’s biggest gay club, The Week.
Rio de Janeiro – Brazil
Rio’s Pride, although not as big as São Paulo’s, is just as fun. The city’s parade is one grand, colorful party on the famous Copacabana beach, offering a carnival-like, samba-fueled atmosphere throughout the city. The celebrations extend into the early hours of the next day, and different neighborhoods – like the North Rio district of Madureira – even have their own mini-parades alongside the main event.
After the main parade, partygoers typically move on to Papa G club, where the crowds often spill onto the street outside.
Buenos Aires – Argentina
The Marcha del Orgullo a Pride is Argentina’s largest LGBTQ event. Initially, it began as a protest march in 1992, attended by just 300 people, most wearing masks to conceal their identity. Today, it has become one of the most popular gay pride parades in South America, hosting 100,000-200,000 attendees from around the world each year.
The parade typically takes place on the first or second Saturday of November, starting just outside the famous Casa Rosada in the Plaza de Mayo. The festivities then make their way up the 11 blocks of Avenida de Mayo to the Plaza Congreso, where a public concert takes place. If you’re in town for Pride, check out the Queer Tango Festival and the Asterisco Film Festival, which celebrates sexual diversity through cinema.
Buenos Aires boasts a vibrant gay scene, and the rich tango culture in San Telmo is home to many queer milongas (tango dance halls). Interestingly, when tango originated in the 1880s, it was originally danced between two men in the back alleys of Buenos Aires. In the past 20 years, there has been a revival of queer tango culture in the city, especially at La Marshall and Tango Queer Milongas, which each offer classes specifically for the LGBTQ community.
Bogotá Pride – Colombia
Colombia has massively evolved over the past decade into one of the safest and most progressive destinations in South America. Gay marriage was legalized here in 2016 and same-sex adoption was made legal in 2015. The first gay pride march in Colombia took place in Bogotá as early as 1982, with just 32 people marching and nearly 100 policemen in attendance for crowd control. The parade seized for several years before resuming in 1997, becoming an annual event thereafter.
Today, Gay Pride Day is celebrated throughout the country in late June and early July, with parades in most major cities. The largest celebration is the Orgullo Gay march in Bogotá, which attracts over 50,000 people and stretches from Parque Nacional to Plaza de Bolívar, where political speeches are followed by live music.
Music and dance are at the core of Colombian culture, and Bogotá Pride truly delivers on the party vibe. The city is home to the largest gay club in South America, Theatron, where revelers enjoy the celebration’s biggest party; this massive nightclub complex features 13 different gay clubs spread across five floors, capable of holding around 5,000 people. Each venue has its own theme – from 1980s hits to salsa music, offering something for everyone.
