Colorfully dressed participants celebrate the start of this year’s CSD parade in the city. ColognePride is the second largest CSD parade in Germany after Berlin. +++ dpa picture radio +++
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach also stopped by: Christopher Street Day (CSD) took place in Cologne on Sunday (July 9th). Traditionally, it started from the Deutzer Bridge and then towards the city center – 4.3 kilometers long. As the organizers reported, the train with 230 groups and 60,000 participants was longer than ever in the history of the LGBTQIA+ community in Cologne. Preliminary estimates are for 1.5 million viewers.
It was not until the afternoon that the stage program at Cologne’s Heumarkt had to be briefly interrupted because a storm was brewing. This year’s motto was: “For human rights. Many. Together. Strong”. Attacks on people from the queer community were discussed. “We have already achieved a lot, but we are not there yet,” said Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) on site.
The Cologne CSD is one of the largest events for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer community in Europe.
According to the police, there were no major clashes at the CSD until Sunday afternoon. On Saturday night, however, two CSD visitors were attacked in the city center by a suspected drunk man.
The CSD goes back to the storming of the Stonewall Inn gay bar on New York’s Christopher Street on June 28, 1969 by the police. This was followed by days of heavy clashes between activists and security forces. The Cologne demonstration is organized by the Cologne Pride association, which in 2022 was still called Cologne Lesbian and Gay Day. The name has now had its day, said press spokesman Hugo Winkels. “The name was there for Cologne’s lesbians and gays, but the queer community has grown so much over the past 30 years and has become so diverse that we wanted to be open to everyone with our name.” The Berlin CSD will take place on July 22nd 2023 instead. The term Christopher Street Day is only common in Germany, parts of Austria and Switzerland. In English-speaking and Romance countries, people mostly speak of gay pride and pride parades, in Slavic-speaking countries these commemorations are usually called equality parades, such as the Parada Równości in Poland.