Festa Junina or Festa de São João
Translating literally, June Festivities or Saint John’s Festivals is a celebration on the months of June and July in Brazil. It originated from European midsummer celebrations and includes some similar traditions like a large bonfire (that seems to make a lot more sense in the southern hemisphere because it happens during winter months) and also a dance derived from palatial European court balls, modified and redefined with new meaning, related to popular and rural themes and paired with brazillian “forró” or country music.
Dressing up and dances
Traditionally everyone wears plaid shirts/dresses, straw hats, painted on gap tooths, very blatant blush on cheeks and lots of painted freckles, girls wear their hairs in pigtails and boys paint on moustaches and beards. This is the stereotypical exaggerated rural look, and is more common for kids to dress this way, while in parties with mostly adults it’s more common to just wear plaid shirts, a straw hat and do some make-up.
The dances are choreographed but very standard between places, with someone announcing vocal cues for specific dance steps, switching partners, doing coordinated group moves and sometimes ending in a mock wedding.
Traditional food
Now, the best part of it all, my favorite thing from this time of the year, THE FOOD!
The traditional foods are super delicious and mostly made out of corn, like corn cakes, cural, pamonha, but there’s also peanuts, specially sweetened peanuts, popcorn, sweet or salted, caramelized apples, quentão, which is a warm spiced drink, that may or may not be alcoholic and is one of my favorite things.
I’ll try to update the thread with some recipes later or maybe just talk more about food, but I can’t promise I actually will.
Join our public Matrix server!
https://rentry.co/tracha#tracha-rooms
As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.
Also, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It’s for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.
Here is a screenshot of where to find the spoiler button.
spoiler
I’m moving close to an lgbt center that sounds like it’s open to go hangout at if you’re an adult… I do need some casual women’s clothes though because I can’t show up looking like this 😭 but also it can’t be anything that wild because I’m not really ready yet, in public anyway.
im so grateful for the lgbtq space close to me
Just a summer shirt with a vneck cut from the women’s section at <insert generic chain>. It’s fairly simple way of starting. Also the ones at the “above normal size” section or whatever which were the only ones that could fit me were really plain and fairly boring. Because I guess these generic chains don’t keep a selection for biguns.
Okay, thank you that is a good suggestion. That’s not too bad. What about for pants/shorts? Low key really hate jeans… I guess there’s always sweatpants but idk.
Torrid has a bunch of high waisted wide leg challis pants that I’m a big fan of. It drapes and flows nicely and feels good. Wide leg emphasizes your lower half and high waisted shortens your torso and emphasizes your hips.
Alternatively, cargo pants are fun imo.
Hmm.
Sweat pants would work but if you also want something else that’s not jeans, you’d still have to pop over to a chain store. The women’s cuts are quite different for jeans, i got them. I’ve never tried women’s clothes for non-jeans, but you could get regular pants. There’s a lot of then. I’ve noticed that women’s pants tend to have big openings at the feet a can be quite wide with a taper. But there’s also tight fitting pants. Maybe you could get those to boost your curves and feel nice (a tight fit round the asset can feel very comfortable).
can accessorize too. not too hard to do while masc presenting either, even silver jewelry can be “manly” to cisociety but a tell in queer spaces
i say this because i haven’t solved pants yet. i have some dress pants that are gorgeous but way too tight at the waist and gap cargoesque shorts that pass as masc if you don’t clock how high up my thigh they go
I’ve been at a ton of different queer community centers and trans meetups over the years, and in general these are the places were you need to worry least about your appearance as a partially outed trans person, people there get the situation you’re in because we’ve all been there. You do not have to prove yourself in such a setting. You can just show up in whatever feels safe for you and say “hi, i’m (chosen name), my pronouns are it/its or she/her” or maybe they even have little name tags you can write that down on if they are mindful of shy and socially awkward people and don’t want to do the self helf group pronoun circle introduction. Some places even have a changing room or at least a roomy unisex bathroom where you can get dressed specifically because being femme presenting in public can be daunting early on and they want to give visitors a space where they can safely try things out. Many also host clothes swaps or similar thrifting events.
Maybe go and email a volunteer at that place to ask about this stuff, it can help to get a read on the general vibe. Maybe they can also point you to specific trans events they host.