The 2014 Miss Latina Internacional Gay beauty pageant will be hosted for the first time in Costa Rica, and it will feature two separate events. On Friday night, the transgender contestants will be introduced at the Ribs Bar and Restaurant in San Joaquín de Flores; the gala event and awards ceremony will take place at the Lucho Barahona Theater in San Jose on Saturday night. Organizer Ricardo Castillo explained to a national newspaper that the decision to host this pageant in Costa Rica is due to our country’s tolerant and supportive stance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) affairs.

Mr. Castillo visited the offices of national daily tabloid Diario Extra on Wednesday to explain that a former version of this pageant was previously held in Panama, but he decided to leave that Central American nation and come to Costa Rica instead. He mentioned that hosting the pageant in Costa Rica has not been easy because everything is more expensive, but he feels safer and more welcome in our country, where he found it very easy to get sponsors and support from the legal community.

“There is homophobia in all nations, but Costa Rica has an open mind. There are countries such as Honduras and Republica Dominicana where we can’t host this pageant because our “chicas” (contestants) get beat up by [intolerant and ignorant] attackers. Those are societies where machismo still rules.”

For this pageant, the “chicas” are contestants who were born as males but have undergone various degrees of transformation into the female gender. They will represent the following nations:

• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Panama
• Puerto Rico
• Venezuela

Mr. Castillo added that he is aware that Costa Rica is a predominantly Catholic nation by virtue of her Constitution, but he extended a message of peace towards the Church and faithful. The pageant staff consists of 15 production personnel, and the award for the beauty queen will consist of $1,000 plus a pageant crown encrusted with precious stones.