By Mareike Sophie Drünkler
Glittering people are dancing on the street, protest signs are announcing messages of love and a different party is raging on every truck, which seems to be even louder and even more colourful.
Loud and colorful enough to wake you up. Because that’s exactly what the annual freedom parade, which moved through downtown Berlin on Saturday, is all about.
Annemike (left) and Beatrice work full-time as travel agents and event managers, part-time they represent “Berlin Pride” – the Berliners want to show: “We are here to show that we exist and that we, like everyone else, are completely normal.” Photo: Olaf Selchow
For the 45th time, this time with a total of 77 trucks and under the motto “Be their voice and ours… For more empathy and solidarity!” Live and let love. That should actually be a matter of course, appealed the approximately 500,000 demonstrators, who danced their way from the Spittelmarkt to the Victory Column after the brief opening by Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (50, CDU). The protest march reached its destination in the late afternoon, but celebrations continued throughout the night all over Berlin.
The Berliner Amanda Cox (31) has been living in Hamburg for ten years, where she is a travesty artist on the stages of St. Pauli. She also thinks: “People have become very aggressive. Today I no longer go out alone in my stage outfits.” Photo: Olaf Selchow
“In 1993 we were at the Berlin CSD for the first time, in ’97 we moved from Aachen to Berlin. A lot has changed since then. Today we can’t even go for a walk in Kreuzberg holding hands without being attacked,” says Axel Wippermann.
The 64-year-old came to Leipziger Strasse with his partner Hans Kremer (60). Rainbow partner look after “35 years of wild marriage”. Both have been campaigning against intolerance for decades, both love the CSD, both think: “There is still a lot to do!”
Samira Elsner (17) traveled to the protest with her son Taylor (4) from Bautzen to set an example: “When my brother came out as trans, I really became aware of all the intolerance in society. Since then I’ve always been there.” Photo: Olaf Selchow
This is also what the statistics say: “The number of procedures recorded each year has risen continuously since 2018. A total of 1883 procedures were carried out up to and including 2021,” reports the “Berlin Monitoring”. In addition, there are the smaller attacks that are not reported and not recorded.
“The CSD is all the more important! Of course it’s also a big party, but today is above all a demo,” say Annemike and Beatrice from Berlin. Giving in or “disappearing back underground” is out of the question for them.
It took Jumino Kristinanto (54) two whole nights to make his costume. The hairdresser and make-up artist moved to Berlin from Jakarta before he was 16 and “never missed the CSD. There is no such thing in Indonesia. I love Berlin, I’m free here.” Photo: Olaf Selchow
“We will stay. And despite everything, it’s still very lucky to live in Berlin,” they say on the way to the white cabriolet, from which they befittingly represent “Pride Berlin”.
The sisters Chantal Röller (23, left) and Sandra Hollmann (32) traveled from Rendsburg especially to experience the CSD in Berlin: “We were already there in Flensburg and Kiel, but today we are experiencing the Berlin CSD for the first time. It’s not easy for us as lesbian women in Rendsburg…” Photo: Olaf Selchow