Gay Pride steps up to Cinta Costera

PANAMA’S  GAY PRIDE parade is expected to attract at least 10,000 participants this year as it moves from Via Argentina to the  less confined Cinta Costera with the country’s first lady as  the standard bearer.

The event, organized by the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual)  community under the banner “Panama, the sum of all”, will be staged on Saturday July 1, and will include a fair starting at 11:00 a.m. in the Mirador del Pacífico, where there will be workshops of music, fashion and sports activities.

Ricardo Beteta, president of the organization Men and New Women in Panama and a member of the organizing committee, said that the activity seeks to call for the end of  discrimination on the basis of gender, identity, race, as well as between societal groups.

The  march will begin at 3:30 p.m. from the parking lots of the Hotel Miramar with the first lady, Lorena Castillo de Varela.as the standard bearer.