Top Holloween Gay Parties Your Must See List

34th Halloween Parade
New York City
Oct. 31, 2007; 7-9 p.m.
www.halloween-nyc.com

KNOW: New York City's carnival started as a gay event with 150 people. The Halloween Parade is now the world's largest Halloween event, attracting nearly 2 million people.

WHERE: The parade careers up Sixth Avenue from Spring to 22nd streets, through Chelsea from the Village. Masks, headdresses, wigs and wings flood gay bars in Chelsea, the Village, West Fourth and Sixth.

DRESS: Anyone in costume is welcome to join in as seething seas of cross-dressers sway through the streets. It might all be good fun, but this is New York and it's competitive. Undercover agents award prizes for the best costumes, which are often pieces of performance art. SCARY FUN: The best place to congregate is around Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue or in Washington Square Park near NYU.



West Hollywood Halloween Costume Carnival
Los Angeles
Oct. 31, 2007; 6 p.m.
www.visitwesthollywood.com; 310-289-2525

KNOW: Twenty-five years ago, WeHo boys spilled out of bars, blocking Santa Monica Boulevard and stopping traffic in a spontaneous gathering of drag, costumes and bare bodies. It's evolved from one gay evening to an event swarming with people who come hundreds of miles from all around Southern California. Creative costumes used to outnumber spectators; now there are more people not in costume. Santa Monica Boulevard closes at 3 p.m. and vendors, radio stations, DJs, performers and hundreds of thousands of onlookers descend.

WHERE: The heart of West Hollywood; Santa Monica Boulevard between Sweetzer and Doheny; Robertson Boulevard between Santa Monica and Melrose Avenue and in many bars and restaurants along the way. Gay bars are packed; dancing and partying goes on until the early hours.

DRESS: Los Angeles' galaxy of entertainment-industry egos makes WeHo's Halloween super-competitive, often courtesy of real studio costumes. Picture 25 red, white and blue debutantes or a phalanx of gladiators plunging down Santa Monica Boulevard. Tacky, clever and the more over-the-top the better is the L.A. mantra. Mardi Gras-type garb, drag, military and minimal all star. SCARY FUN: Here Bar, the Abbey, Rage, Ultra Suede, and Factory throb with life. More costumes shimmer in the clubs than on the streets. The crowd tends to be gayer at Here and the Abbey later in the evening.

To get the most out of the party, you need to dress up. Walk the boulevard, popping in and out of bars along the way (beware the prohibitive club cover charges). Allow extra time to make your way along the boulevard -- depending how good you look, it can take up to an hour per block, with suburbanites stopping you every five feet for photos.



Halloween 24
New Orleans, La.
Oct. 25-28, 2007
www.halloweenneworleans.comKNOW: The 24th Halloween is a series of events benefiting Lazarus House, a home for men and women with HIV/AIDS whose families cannot take care of them.

WHERE: Head for the Bourbon Pub and Parade club. Bodies fill the venue and spill onto Bourbon Street from midday Thursday till the early hours of Monday.

DRESS: For the circuit party, originality is key -- it's about how creative you can get. Costumes are always over-the-top, from a 7-foot tall drag queen dressed as the Chiquita banana girl to an airport tower complete with lights. SCARY FUN: The costume-obligatory Wild Kingdom Costume Dance Extravaganza (Oct. 27, 2007, The Sugar Mill, 10 p.m.-4 a.m.; $75) is the major event and the main reason to sashay down South this October. Don't even think about skipping the adornment.

This year's theme is "Wild Kingdom" -- so get in character and parade through the French Quarter to bask in attention



Fantasy Fest and Halloween
Key West, Fla.Oct. 19-28, 2007
www.fantasyfest.net ; 305-296-1817

KNOW: A little bit of Mardi Gras, a little bit of Halloween and a lot of fun with Florida's finest.

WHERE: The bars and restaurants around Duval Street, between Eaton and South streets, see most fantasy action take place.

DRESS: A cacophony of opportunities to flaunt flamboyance occur from the Fantasy Street Fair to Captain Morgan's Parade.

SCARY FUN: Don't miss the parade of furred and feathered fashionistas at the Pets Masquerade Parade (Oct. 22; 1500 Reynolds St.) or the Masquerade March when a cavalcade of costumed characters career from Key West Cemetery through Old Town.


The Parade of the Lost Souls
Vancouver, B.C.
Oct. 27, 2007; 6-10 p.m.
www.publicdreams.org
KNOW: Vancouver's spooky goings-on are courtesy of the Public Dreams Society, which also lights up the East Side with July's Illuminares lantern festival.

WHERE: Grandview's public spaces are overrun by ghouls and costumed cavorters as this much-loved parade stomps through Vancouver's lesbian neighborhood once again, starting at William and Cotton.

DRESS: The Parade of Lost Souls sees costumed marchers, dancers and assorted chaotic and colorful characters carouse through Grandview's green spaces.

SCARY FUN: Frighteningly good fun is to be had at the annual BOO! Halloween Vancouver party (Oct. 27, 2007; www.halloweenvancouver.com), a popular fundraiser for the Vancouver Men's Chorus. Girls can sashay along to a Halloween party at Lick (Oct. 31, 2007; www.markjames.com).

To make the most of the night, reserve a table well in advance for one of the Drive's gay and lesbian-popular haunts, such as Havana or Stella's

Gays In India My wife says she is a lesbian. Can you please cure her?"

'Unnatural offence'

It has been a long, strange trip towards coming out of the closet for lesbians like Malobika in conservative India, where same-sex relationships are illegal and almost blasphemous.

The 145-year-old colonial Indian Penal Code clearly describes a same sex relationship as an "unnatural offence".

These days, there is a greater openness about the gay community in the big cities. But homophobia is still pretty rampant


In a largely patriarchal society, lesbians bear the brunt of social ostracisation and the law more than gay men. In many states, lesbians have taken their lives after facing harassment at home and outside.

Malobika and her friends have been luckier - "We are educated and have a class advantage," as one of them says.

Born to a mechanical engineer father and a homemaker mother, Malobika discovered her sexuality when she was 17. Some 18 years later, when her parents were frantically looking around for a suitable groom, she finally told them the truth.

"My mother said she did not understand what I was saying. It took some time for the whole thing to sink in," she said, sitting in a smoky teashop in downtown Calcutta.

Five years ago, Malobika along with five other lesbians started up a support group called Sappho named after the Greek lyric poet.

They run a helpline, publish a magazine and take up cases of human rights abuses.

Anguished world

The helpline has become their window to the dark world of Indian lesbians.
The new openness often masks the frustrations within

Most of the women who call in say they have been forcibly married off by their parents.

When they tell the truth, they are thrown out of their homes by their spouses, parents and relatives.

Most of these hapless women suffer from extremely low esteem and say that something is gravely wrong with them.

"Am I normal? Am I like other women? Tell me please," asks an anguished caller on the Sappho helpline.

A panicky man asks, "My wife says she is a lesbian. Can you please cure her?"
The gay march in Calcutta has become an annual feature

Sappho has a psychiatrist on the line, who counsels these panicky women - and men.

Homophobia, say support groups, is acute in India. Malobika says when parents find out - or the girl tells them - the truth, they run to the doctor.

"The doctor typically tells the girl to swim, cook and knit. 'That way she will become a girl again,' they say.

"The parents then usually take the girl home and shut her up, cutting her off from the outside world."

Many girls from the villages Greater acceptance
escape to the big city after being thrown out of their homes.

Malobika remembers one 28-year-old girl who ran away to Calcutta to be with her partner and take up a job in a beauty parlour. Four years later, her estranged parents came to visit her - and since then have accepted the relationship.



Pavan Dhal is worried about "risky sexual behaviour" among the gays

In big cities like Calcutta, there is slightly more acceptance of same sex relationships these days. As in other parts of the world, India has seen a growing gay and lesbian movement.
"These days, there is a greater openness about the gay community in the big cities. But homophobia is still pretty rampant," says Rafiquel Haque, 31, a theatre actor and gay rights activist.

This means that when bright, young men like Rafiquel decide to come out of the closet and begin talking to the media, they lose some friends.

One reason is that gay behaviour is also regarded as sexually predatory.

Rafiquel says he was friends with a "liberal" artist couple and their only son - till they saw him on a television show on gay issues.

"The moment they came to know I was gay they stopped talking. They stopped their son from meeting me. His mother told me, 'If my son becomes like you, I will commit suicide'."

Coming out of the closet, however, is easier now: the eastern West Bengal state alone has some nine gay and lesbian support groups.

Carnival

Rafiquel, who was instrumental in setting up one in 1993, says they reached out to 5,000 gay men in the state within three years.



The government says public morals need to be protected

Two years ago, he organised a same sex mardi gras in Calcutta. Since then it has become a regular yearly event.

Plays on gay issues are staged, members debate community issues, and books and journals are sold at this merry fortnight-long carnival.

It climaxes with a colourful march through the streets of Calcutta - last year as many 300 gays, lesbians and transgender people participated in the march.

But life is still not easy even for a gay man in India - he usually faces derision at work, and struggles to find a partner.

Most gay men usually cruise darkly lit streets and unkempt parks and often get picked up by police looking for bribes.

"It's not easy to meet a partner. I still don't have a lasting partner. It can be very lonely sometimes," says Pavan Dhal, 36, who heads a support group.

"There's also a lot of risky sexual behaviour. Its not a very happy situation that way". Go where they go. Join Gay.date.com today!