Here in the United States, the month of June is LGBTQ Pride Month – the month chosen to coincide with the Stonewall riots of 1969. During this month, many pride events are held throughout the country. Last week marked Washington, D.C.’s annual Pride Parade, bringing thousands of people together in support of equality and human rights. Meanwhile, Berlin is preparing for its own parade in July, known as Christopher Street Day Berlin or simply “Berlin Pride.”
Berlin’s Pride Parade is one of the largest in all of Europe and also one of the oldest. The annual event was first held in June 30, 1979 in commemoration of the Stonewall riots in New York, which was an uprising of the LGBTQ community against police assaults in June 1969. These assaults took place on Christopher Street in New York, which is why many European pride events today are referred to as “Christopher Street Day”.
Although Germany’s first Christopher Street Day was held in Berlin, many other German cities followed in the city’s footsteps, creating their own CSD parades. Hamburg and Cologne are well known for their large pride parades, but Berlin still holds the record: in 2012, approximately 700,000 people attended Berlin’s Pride Parade, making it one of the largest pride events in the entire world.
The US legalized same-sex marriage in 2015 and Germany legalized it in 2017. Pride parades on both side of the Atlantic demonstrate the importance of inclusion for both the US and Germany.
By Nicole Glass, German Embassy
