Christopher Street Day
Queer representative: The Berlin CSD has a wide appeal
As early as Friday, people celebrated queer diversity on a ship on the Spree in the run-up to Christopher Street Day. photo
© Fabian Sommer/dpa
Half a million people are expected in Berlin today for the CSD. According to the city’s queer commissioner, Alfonso Pantisano, a strong symbol for the freedom of love will be set.
The Christopher Street Day in According to the capital’s queer commissioner, Alfonso Pantisano (SPD), Berlin is important far beyond the city.
“I think that in Berlin, as the federal capital, we have a special focus,” he told the German Press Agency. “The CSD here has a radiance in other countries around the world.” At the same time, Berlin is the city where the worldwide homosexual movement was born. “I think it’s a special honor when we take to the streets here and also remember all those who have fought for years so that we can live our love, our desire and our lives freely today.”
Pantisano was only appointed “contact person for Queeres Berlin” by the Senate last Tuesday, but he has often been to the CSD. “It’s my 30th year going to a CSD. I usually go to several CSDs a year,” he said. “My very first CSD was in Cologne in 1993.” Six weeks later he had his coming out. “It was exactly this CSD where I understood that living in darkness is not a worthy life and that’s why I have to go into the light. That’s how I went about it.”
For the CSD on Saturday in the capital, the organizers are expecting around half a million participants, mainly from the queer community. Non-heterosexual people or people who do not identify with the traditional role model of men and women or other social norms relating to gender and sexuality describe themselves as queer.