After a two-year Corona break, Christopher Street Day (CSD) is now returning to the streets of Munich. Mayor Katrin Habenschaden (Greens) is really euphoric: “I’m happy that we’re making the rainbow shine for two weeks,” she said on Thursday at a press conference on this year’s CSD. “Less me, more we” – this year’s motto for the parade and the two upcoming “Pride” weeks could hardly be more appropriate. “After this long phase of isolation, the retreat into digital spaces, we all have a great longing for community,” said habenharm in her welcoming address. Especially in this time solidarity with the attacked, the excluded and the weak is important.
Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD), as patron of the CSD Munich, also sends an unmistakable signal: “Finally we can all set an example again in a large group and together for diversity, equality, respect and a colorful society.” Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people (LGBTIQ) are still exposed to hostility and are more than averagely affected by hate crime, hate speech and violence.
In view of the terrorist attack in Oslo on people who visited a queer bar and the attacks on CSD participants in Augsburg, there is great fear that something could also happen in Munich. One is in close contact with the police headquarters, but so far there is no evidence of a threat, say the organizers of the CSD Munich. City councilor Thomas Niederbühl (Rosa Liste), who is also the political spokesman for the CSD, emphasizes: “Attacks against the freedom to live and love queer affect us all as a community.”
For the first time, “Pride Week” will take place over two weeks
This year the CSD in Munich should be particularly visible. For the first time, the so-called Pride Week will take place over two weeks: from July 2nd to 17th, the Munich community invites you to sports events, political discussions, art and workshops. The highlight is of course the political parade on Saturday, July 16th. After the ecumenical service, which takes place at 10 a.m. in the Paulskirche near Theresienwiese, the parade starts at 12 p.m. at Mariahilfplatz in der Au, and then follows a new route through the city center. The approximately 140 participating organizations drive by car or walk across the Reichenbach Bridge over Gärtnerplatz to the Old Town Hall on Marienplatz.
For the first time, the parade will be led by people from Ukraine: refugees, but also guests from Kyiv Pride, Gay Alliance Ukraine and Odesa Pride. On the stage at Marienplatz, people commemorate the victims of the war. Munich has maintained a close partnership with the LGBTIQ community in its twin city of Kyiv and with other Ukrainian cities for ten years.
The “Trans* Inter* Badetag” in the Müller’schen Volksbad also has its premiere this year. On Wednesday, July 6, the small indoor swimming pool is reserved from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. The “queer swimming” is to take place once a month in the Volksbad in the future and is organized together with the Tinqnet network and the Munich pools of the Stadtwerke München (SWM). The offer is intended to enable people with a trans-inter-nonbinary or genderqueer identity to bathe without fear of sexist or homophobic attacks.
The festival officially starts on Saturday, July 2, at 10 a.m. with the extra pride “Nothing about us without us” in Import-Export at Schwere-Reiter-Straße 2h. A highlight should also be the “Dyke* March Munich” bicycle demo on Saturday from 3.30 p.m. with a meeting point on the Theresienwiese. On Sunday, July 3, at 5 p.m., the rainbow concert continues in the Old Town Hall under the patronage of Lord Mayor Reiter. For him, the CSD and the Pride Week are “a colorful flagship for a tolerant and cosmopolitan Munich”. More information is available online at www.csdmuenchen.de.