For George Santos, a life in Brazil at odds with his GOP politics

[former9thward]

George Santos as Kitara Ravache during a gay parade in Niterói, Brazil, in August 2007



NITERÓI, Brazil — The sight of the newcomer took Gino Fonseca by surprise. As one of the city’s most prominent drag queens, Fonseca thought he knew most everyone who worked the nightclubs and LGBTQ events. But when he ascended a Pride parade float dressed in his drag persona, Katya Furacão, he saw a dazzling young drag performer he’d never before encountered.

Fonseca watched Kitara Ravache, who wore a red bejeweled dress, with wonder. The newcomer had appeared from nowhere but was already at the top of the local gay scene, dancing alongside the most established drag queens in this Rio de Janeiro suburb. “She shone,” Fonseca recalled. “She had light.”

That August 2007 day was the zenith of Rep. George Santos’s brief and long-hidden past as a drag performer in Brazil, when the future New York Republican congressman lived a life that was often jarringly at odds with his current politics.

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But in his mother’s native Niterói, Santos actively participated in the budding gay rights movement, according to photos and people who knew him, and performed in drag more often than he has acknowledged. He attended the city’s first Pride parades, handed out pamphlets at events, befriended some of the city’s leading activists, and climbed nightclub stages to dance and lip sync in his drag persona, Kitara Ravache, promising to one day compete himself in Miss Brasil Gay.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/31/george-santos-brazil/

[617Blue]

1. "She shone,".

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Santos may have had a better career if he'd stayed Kitara Ravache in Brazil.

[UTUSN]

3. "his GOP politics" - does he actually *have* politics?