The dialect of the Austrian neighbors doesn’t sound as sexy as Conchita Wurst aka Tom Neuwirth. In glitter trousers and a short glitter net shirt over her chest, her brown hair wildly tousled, her trademark, the full beard, knitted tightly around her chin, the diva from Styria jumps onto the stage at Marienplatz on Sunday evening. It’s just beginning to get dark. Bright headlights come on. “Hello from Munich.” Rows of white teeth gleam from Tom Neuwirth’s beard.
The Eurovision Song Contest winner from 2014 is the main act and conclusion of the CSD weekend. Several thousand people are crowded together on Munich’s Rathausplatz. They were waiting for Neuwirth.
Thousands of eyes are focused on him, and the singer has the golden Mother of God on Marienplatz in mind. “Dirty Maria, please let me go. You know my weakness is the bleakness without you,” sings Neuwirth. My weakness is the desolation without you. Is that blasphemy in this place? More of a remarkable coincidence.
The song “Dirty Maria” is a love song, and the theme of love is a big one this evening, especially on Christopher Street Day (CSD). It’s about love that wants to be lived, no matter how and between whom, as long as it’s consensual. It’s been almost ten years, says Neuwirth, that he won the ESC in Copenhagen with “Rise like a Phoenix”. In a tight dress with a beard and long hair, the fictional character Conchita Wurst became the role model. The look has been, and has been, often copied ever since. It was okay for the community for a while, he calls into the microphone. “But now it’s going to be Oarsch again.” And then he encourages his audience: “We’re here, we’ll continue to exist. Fucking unstoppable!”
Conchita Wurst at Marienplatz: “Fucking unstoppable!”
(Photo: Florian Peljak/Florian Peljak)
Unable to be stopped. The enthusiasm of the audience supports this impression. Never before have so many people celebrated at a Munich Pride as this weekend. There were 520,000 on Saturday, that’s a record. On Sunday, more than 10,000 came to the city center to watch the breakneck pump race and music acts like Damien Prince from Munich, drag artist Pandora Knox and Conchita Wurst in the late afternoon.
So far, the police have only reported one attack in connection with the CSD. A 17-year-old from the district of Augsburg and a 21-year-old from Munich were “insulted with LGBT-hostile content” by a stranger at the main train station on Saturday evening. When the 17-year-old defended himself, he was also physically attacked by the woman. A male companion of the unknown insulted and threatened the men.
A drag performer writes on Instagram that he was followed and insulted by men after his performance. The artist writes about his anger at having to be afraid just because one behaves “queer” and is dressed differently from the norm. Numerous Kotz emojis can be found on the channels of the Munich CSD.
So it is still important not to let up in the fight for the human right to be what everyone wants. “At the moment one would like to bury one’s head in the sand,” says Tom Neuwirth on Sunday evening, probably referring to the increasing restrictions on homosexuals and trans people in many countries. His slogan: “My heart is like a firestorm, Oida!”