Anti-Queer Violence Is Everyone's Concern!
The attack on Berlin's Christopher Street Day (CSD) has shaken all of us and still leaves a feeling of grief, fear, and incomprehension. Queer people across Germany are mourning. They have supported one another and are trying to process the incomprehensible. Berlin stood, in large part, for freedom and acceptance — which is precisely why an attack like this is especially unsettling there. In media and political discourse, people speak of an "attack on all of us," on our democracy, and on our way of living together. [3] But the target of the attack was not the Love Parade, nor a carnival procession — it was a queer demonstration, one that gives queer life maximum visibility every year. The attack targeted queer life and was meant to hit and hurt queer people. That is why we demand: queer life in all its facets must be protected! Cutting funding for projects that protect and support queer life runs diametrically counter to that demand — and receives little media attention.
Christopher Street Day grew out of a resistance movement by the LGBTQIA*+ community in New York City. Until the 1960s, and beyond, queer people faced severe repression and brutal physical violence at the hands of the state and the police. On June 28, 1969, the New York police once again carried out one of their notorious raids on the "Stonewall Inn" — a well-known queer bar on Christopher Street in New York City. That day, the people in the bar resisted, and the uprising spread throughout Christopher Street in the days that followed. The anger over decades of discrimination and violence broke loose with full force. [1] The uprising was led, among others, by Black, Latinx, and/or trans* people and sex workers such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. A year later, the first "Christopher Street Liberation Day" was held in memory of those who fought for the rights of queer and trans* people. What is often forgotten is that this fight for equality was shaped above all by trans* and Black people, queers of color, and sex workers. The Stonewall riots were directed against police violence and discrimination. The intersectionality of these forms of discrimination and oppression means that, to this day, queer Black people, people of color, and migrantized queer people are disproportionately affected. CSD, then, is not merely a parade of visibility — it is a clear protest, and it stands for the fight for recognition of precisely those people who do not fit into a cis-hetero-white normative understanding. CSD parades now take place worldwide, and their political significance continues today. [2]
Because of the perpetrator's religiously and Islamist-extremist motive, political and media discourse around the attack has largely focused on lumping Muslims or people perceived as migrants together with Islamists and placing them under general suspicion. Racist stereotypes are being reproduced. The many people affected by the attack, and its fatal victim — a mother who attended the CSD with her queer daughter — have received comparatively little attention. The investigation is proceeding slowly. Large parts of civil society and the queer community, who had already feared a racially charged debate, were, even in the immediate aftermath of the attack, busy mourning while also clearly positioning themselves in solidarity and condemning every form of group-focused hatred — including racism.
Anti-queer and anti-trans hostility are directed against queer and trans* people. They exist on a continuum that can range from intolerance and discrimination to hate crime. These terms capture the underlying mindset better than "homophobia" does. That term suggests an underlying fear rather than a conviction, and in doing so implicitly legitimizes the violence. Anti-queer and anti-trans hostility instead foreground the ideological character of group-focused enmity.
Anti-queer and anti-trans violence has been rising for years continuously, and to a drastic extent. The Federal Criminal Police Office's (BKA) 2025 situation report on crime-related security for LGBTIQ* people documents a marked increase since 2010: 186 cases were reported in 2010, compared to 1,785 in 2023 [4]. Until 2020, the category "sexual orientation" also recorded offenses whose motives targeted a person's gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. In other words, offenses classified as "misogynistic" or "misandrist," or directed against a person's "gender identity," were recorded together in a single category rather than being distinguished. The 2020 change to recording offenses in separate categories allows for a clearer breakdown of motives by type. As a result, the data from 2010 to 2021 cannot yield an unambiguous conclusion about the rise in anti-queer violence over that period. Since 2022, however, a rise in queer-motivated attacks has again been recorded.
The report's core finding is that the number of offenses against queer people has risen since at least 2021. Even though the statistics for 2010–2020 do not provide exact figures, it is presumed that anti-queer offenses also increased during that period. A large number of cases go unreported, meaning queer people tend to report crimes against them less often than other groups. [5]
The report also makes clear which groups these offenses came from. Contrary to what the discussion around the CSD attack might suggest, offenses with a religious-extremist motive accounted for just 3.71% of cases in 2023. What is highly dangerous: in the same year, 35.36% of queer-motivated offenses originated from the far-right milieu — nearly ten times as many. The greatest danger to queer people in Germany comes from: Germans (76.81%), people with right-wing views (35.36%), men (87.55%), and people over 30 (58.56%). [6].
In a security report, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation shows just how large and organized the threat from the far-right milieu is to queer people and major events like CSD. Since April 2025, more than 50 CSD events have been disrupted or attacked by organized far-right structures. [7] That means that at more than 50 CSD events, queer people had to fear they might not make it home safely, or that their friends would be hurt.
Anti-queer and anti-trans hostility has a history in Germany. Under the German Empire and under National Socialism, homosexuality was deemed "immoral." Under National Socialism, many queer people were systematically persecuted and murdered in concentration camps. [8] Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexuality, was not abolished until 1994. [9] This violence has continuity, one that is still reflected today in structural discrimination and hostile ideology. It has concrete legal consequences as well — for example, the delayed introduction of marriage equality in Germany compared with other EU countries [10], or the long-overdue reform of the Self-Determination Act [11] in 2024, which replaced the discriminatory "Transsexuals Act" (TSG) of 1980 [12]. These legal achievements face constant attacks and are continually up for debate again. Beyond that, this violence manifests in anti-queer and anti-trans rhetoric, in the questioning of legal rights already won, and ultimately in physical violence that can be fatal.
Anti-queer and anti-trans hostility, then, cannot be dismissed as a fringe phenomenon, nor as something "imported." It is structurally embedded and serves a function within a patriarchal system: queer and trans* people are meant to be put back in their place. The continuities of fascist and hostile ideologies remain effective today and continue to find traction in European societies. This is visible, among other things, in the popularity of right-wing-conservative to far-right attitudes — reflected in the electoral success, worldwide, of parties that traffic in hostile rhetoric, that fundamentally attack queer ways of life, or that question queer and trans rights. In addition, a growing societal turn toward traditionalist gender roles, binary notions of gender and sexual orientation, and privileged cis-heteronormative ways of life — marked as the only ones worth striving for — means that the mere existence of queer and trans* people is discursively marked as a threat and as "wrong." Anyone identified as queer or trans* is meant to be punished, and becomes a target of hate crime and hostility, in both public and digital spaces.
The narrative of "imported" anti-queer and anti-trans hostility is not new — it has developed over decades. It functions as a tool to link existing anti-queer and anti-trans hostility within German society to racist discourses of otherness. In this way, an image of "the others" as anti-queer and anti-trans is constructed, and protecting queer life is equated with protection from so-called "migrants." This not only endangers migrantized people and those affected by racism, but also means that queer and trans* people with a migration background face multiple, compounding forms of discrimination. Not only is the impression created that queer and trans* people with a migration background do not exist — rendering their existence invisible — they also experience additional racist discrimination.
We observe with concern that, in connection with the attack on Berlin's CSD as well, racist narratives are being stoked. The main focus for protecting queer people is being tied to protection from the "queer-hostile others," rather than addressing the broader societal development that endangers queer life as a whole. [13]
Anyone who genuinely wants to protect queer and trans* people must look toward where the danger actually lies. To do so, it is essential to develop an intersectional perspective and to question the systems that enable anti-queer and anti-trans hostility, racism, sexism, and every form of discrimination. Queer and trans* people must be able to feel safe, and queer life must be protected. We hope that solidarity with the queer community holds true all year round — not only in moments that attract media attention. Queer rights and trans rights are human rights. They should never have to be fought for, feared for, or negotiated!
[1] Schwitzer (2010): Geschichte des Christopher-Street-Day – Vom Stonewall-Aufstand zur Wasserpistolen-Schlacht, Federal Agency for Civic Education, published 29.06.2010, available here. [Last checked: August 26, 2026].
[2] stonewall.org.uk: Who we are – Stonewall is part of a vibrant, growing and global movement advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, available here. [Last checked: August 26, 2026].
[3] rbb24 (2026): "Angriff auf unsere offene Gesellschaft" – Bestürzung über Bluttat beim Berliner CSD, published 26.07.2026, available here. [Last checked: Aug. 26, 2026].
[4] Federal Ministry of the Interior / BKA (2025), Situation report on crime-related security for LGBTIQ* people – Reporting year 2024, published 16.05.2025, available here, p. 8, pp. 16–17. [last checked: August 26, 2026].
[5] ibid.
[6] ibid.
[7] Lochau, Pohl (2025): Making Anti-Queer Hostility Visible. Security report on far-right attacks on CSD events, Amadeu Antonio Foundation, available here. [Last checked: Aug. 26, 2026].
[8] Bornhorst (2020): Homosexuellenverfolgung, German Historical Museum Berlin / Lebendiges Museum Online, published 22.05.2020, available here. [last checked: August 26, 2026].
[9] Federal Agency for Civic Education (2014): 1994: Homosexuality No Longer a Criminal Offense, "kurz & knapp" series, published 07.03.2014, available here. [Last checked: August 26, 2026].
[10] LSVD: Same-sex marriage in Europe and worldwide, LSVD – Verband Queere Vielfalt e.V., available here. [Last checked: August 26, 2026].
[11] The reform of the Self-Determination Act allows trans* people to change their name and gender marker in the civil register without first having to present discriminatory and costly psychiatric assessments. It also avoids further discrimination by evaluators and judges.
[12] German Institute for Human Rights, Allenberg (2024): "The Self-Determination Act Was Long Overdue", interview with Nele Allenberg of the German Institute for Human Rights, 05/2024, available here. [last checked: Aug. 26, 2026].
[13] Özdemir (2018): (K)ein Recht auf Anderssein – Rassismus, Rechtspopulismus und LSBTIQ*, published 16.04.2018, Heinrich Böll Foundation, available here. [Last checked: August 26, 2026].