BRAZIL:  Carnival, a Complex Annual Revolution for Women, Gays
By Mario Osava

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50381

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 18 , 2010 (IPS) - Fátima Oliveira, one of Brazil's few black women doctors, always goes to "the best carnival," in Sabará, a city of 130,000 people in the state of Minas Gerais, where "men dress up as women" at a celebration that is "very informal, very local, with few tourists."

Cross-dressers appear regularly at the many and varied carnivals in Brazil, but particularly in Sabará, in the southeast of the country, said Oliveira, who is a member of the advisory board of the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network, and ex president of Brazil's National Feminist Network for Health and Sexual and Reproductive Rights.