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16th
Christopher Street Day in Cologne
©
Carolin Köhler/Enkidu
©
Foto: ColognePride (Archivo)
Cologne
is famous for its large community of lesbians and gays. No wonder it also
hosts one of the biggest Christopher Street Days in Europe.
What
began as a street party in 1991 with 3000 lesbian and gay people meeting
in the historical old town of Cologne is now one of the biggest events in
the city. In 2002, it was also the largest CSD ever in Europe with over 1
million people celebrating. Since then, the Christopher Street Day does
not only consist of a street parade but is embedded in a large program
called “Cologne Pride” with a variety of small and large agenda
highlights taking several weeks.
This
years’ supporting programm included different stages with popular
guests, music, performance, cultural festivals. There was also a
commemoration for people who have died on HIV/AIDS on one of the stages
outside. In other venues, there were furthermore gala performances, women
pride, parties, street party and last but not least the parade on july, 8th.
The
parade was as colourful, cheerful and loud as ever. There were about
20.000 participants in the streets showing their pride to be homosexual.
The cloudless sky and the very good mood in the CSD carried over joy to
the circa 800.000 people watching. It felt more like a city’s
celebration rather than a demonstration.
One
could see a variety of people on the streets, be it in drag or in bondage
gear or in uniform clothes with their friends. Some women were wearing
pink shirts with an imprint saying “Purchasable sex is not compatible
with the dignity of women and men”. Their protest refers to the
circumstance that the owner of a large brothel in cologne wanted to take
part in the parade with an own wagon. Because of a lot of protest from
women’s groups addressing the organizer of the CSD, he dropped the idea
shortly before Sunday.
“Europe”
was the central topic of this years’ “Cologne Pride”. The Parade
carried the motto “homo europaeicus: walk upright!” and is supposed to
encourage all homosexuals to fight actively for their rights and social
acceptance. It emphasizes that it is important to fight for civil rights
for lesbians and gays in Europe with an upright attitude to improve the
different situations of life homosexual people still suffer from to some
extent.
Nevertheless,
the organizers point out, that the exposure to homosexuality differs
widely from country to country in Europe. So the situation of lesbians and
gays are hard to compare with each other and sometimes it is a high
personal risk to show that one is not heterosexual.
The
Christopher Street Day does not only evoke enthusiasm with lesbian and gay
people, it also meets some criticism from some of them.
The
motto of this year’s celebrations “Europe” shows quite well that the
CSD in Cologne is focused on improving the situation of homosexuals in
European countries. People of colour and homosexuals in Non-European
countries and their situations are not mentioned. Furthermore, there is
some criticism of the organizers who
didn’t distance themselves from the participation of the largest
brothels in cologne. Because
of the commercialization and the less and less political demand of the
large CSD, there exists an “alternative” called “Transgenial CSD”.
It started in Berlin in 1997.
In
advance of the TCSD, there are workshops concerning topics
like poverty, fortress Europe and many more with a
lesbian/transsexual/transgender/gay/queer gaze.
The
Transgenial parade, which is organized by an open group of people, already
took place on Saturday, 7th
in the city of Cologne. Their concept is, that political parties are not allowed to hold
a speech and there are no waggons from these parties or companies. On this
years’ Transgenial CSD in Cologne 350 people took part in the parade
with the slogan “CSD-do it yourself”. There were 2 waggons with
loudspeakers which accompanied the parade. After the celebrations on the
streets, the participants visited the right-wing student fraternity
“Alemannia” and informed their neighbours about the heterosexist
picture of them and their contacts to the nazi-scene.
This
action shows that the people taking part in the TCSD want to link
different topics. Their statement is, that it is not important to be
accepted by society, but more to attack its centre and change it
radically. They want to express that they all live under the same
conditions that influence not only their sexuality but different areas of
their daily life in which they rather act self-determined.
In contrast, the CSD focuses more on
the discrimination of sexuality and underlines the self-determination in
this specific domain.
So there is a
Christopher-Street-Day-Parade for everyone: The more political ones who
fight for a change of the whole society in order to create a new one in
which equality is based on the variety of people visit the “Transgenial
CSD”. The more civic ones who want to be accepted and a part of the
existing society go for the mainstream CSD.
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