Our political campaign

Our political campaign: Respect is not a one-way street!

Berlin CSD is one of the largest queer demonstrations in Europe and can therefore have a major influence on political decision-makers. Unfortunately, we have often found that although politicians show their faces at CSD, the implementation of our demands is too slow. The number of hate crimes against queer people is increasing, right-wing parties are getting stronger and queer people are being politically attacked more and more often.

It is high time we joined forces and increased the pressure for our demands! This year, we have therefore developed a political campaign plan based on three central elements:

1 – Activating the community

2 – Increasing pressure on decision-makers

3 – Political lobbying

The political campaign plan has a clear dramaturgy and starts several months before CSD 2024. The demonstration is therefore the highlight of our campaign.

Only pressure moves politicians

Political decision-makers are cooking on many different stoves at the same time. If we as a queer community want to be heard, we have to increase the pressure and become louder. That’s why this year we are putting pressure on the governing mayor and saying: Present a plan, otherwise there will be no speech! At last year’s CSD, Kai Wegner promised to campaign for an amendment to Article 3 of the Basic Law. Only the CDU and AfD in the Bundestag are blocking the amendment to the Basic Law. Queer people must finally be protected by constitutional law, especially in view of the rise of right-wing parties! Last year, Kai Wegner (CDU) had every opportunity to influence his party and launch a Bundesrat initiative. That did not happen! That is why we are increasing the pressure this year and calling Kai Wegner out if he does not present a concrete, binding plan to implement our demands by mid-July.

Queer community must wake up from hibernation

Despite the difficult political situation and the threat to queer people, we as a community in Berlin too often act against each other instead of with each other. There is a lot of room for self-preoccupation, even though we should finally be working together to achieve our common goals. With our political campaign, we have also developed measures to activate the queer community. With a large town hall meeting, we were able to plan and prepare the next steps together with 100 queer people and supporters. With a postcard campaign, every queer person can participate at a low threshold. The aim is to find even more active people for 2025!

Networking can be a key

Parallel to the increase in pressure, we want to use all political channels this year to win over MPs and politicians as supporters of our demands. Politicians will therefore have the opportunity to support our demands on our website and have the opportunity to engage with people from the queer community at a parliamentary evening in July. The aim is to persuade politicians to take concrete steps to bring our issues to the House of Representatives, the districts and the Senate administrations!

The campaign council:

The Campaign Council has prepared the political campaign and is carrying out the steps. But for us to be really effective, we need more supporters. So get active too! We look forward to hearing from you at office@csd-berlin.de