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.
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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.