The Berlin Pride Celebration, also known as Christopher Street Day Berlin, or CSD Berlin, is a

pride parade A pride parade (also known as pride event, pride festival, pride march, or pride protest) is an event celebrating lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, LGBT rights by country o ...

and

festival A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

held in the second half of July each year in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Germany to celebrate the

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

, gay,

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

and

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

(

LGBTQ+ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The group i ...

) people and their allies. Since 1979, the event has been held each year. Berlin Pride is one of the largest gay and lesbian organized events in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and one of the biggest in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. Its aim is to demonstrate for equal rights and equal treatment for LGBT people, as well as celebrate the

pride Pride is a human Emotion, secondary emotion characterized by a sense of satisfaction with one's Identity (philosophy), identity, performance, or accomplishments. It is often considered the opposite of shame or of humility and, depending on conte ...

in Gay and Lesbian Culture.

History

The CSD is held in memory of the

Stonewall Riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of ...

, the first big uprising of LGBTQ people against police assaults on June 27, 1969. These took place in Christopher Street, in the neighborhood of Greenwich Village in New York City, New York. The first CSD in Berlin took place on June 30, 1979, and since then has taken place every year. In 2012, around 700,000 people attended the CSD Parade, and 500,000 people were present at the final parade location at the

Brandenburg Gate The Brandenburg Gate ( ) is an 18th-century Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical monument in Berlin. One of the best-known landmarks of Germany, it was erected on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin t ...

, making it into one of the largest events in Berlin as well as one of the largest Pride Events in the world. File:CSD-1 Berlin 2004.JPG, CSD Berlin 2004 File:Berlin.CSD.2006.7442.jpg, Berlin Pride 2006 File:CSD 2008 Berlin (8).JPG, CSD Berlin 2008 File:CSD Berlin 2011 a 25062011 kpjas.jpg, CSD Berlin 2011

Mottoes and Attendance at CSD Berlin

In the early years, the Berlin CSD was a relatively small event. From 400 participants in 1979, the number slowly grew to 5,000 people in 1989. It was only from the mid-1990s that the Berlin CSD gave itself an annual motto. The number of participants and mottos from 1990: Christopher Street Day 1997.jpg, CSD Berlin 1997 Thai Sunnyboy-Christopher Street Day-Berlin 2006.jpg, Berlin Pride 2006 CSD 2008 Berlin (9).JPG, CSD Berlin 2008 Christopher Street Day in Berlin 2012 013.jpg, CSD Berlin 2012

Events

CSD Berlin comprises several events, taking place within the framework of the month-long Pride Festival, usually starting at the end of May. Pride Week is the final week of the festival, ending with the CSD Parade. The CSD Gala has been taking place since 2011, and is organised in co-operation with the Friedrichstadt Show Palace. In the same month both Kreuzberg Pride and ''Gay Night at the Zoo'' are held. More gay festivals in Berlin include Easter Berlin.

Organization

All CSD events are organised by the Berliner CSD e.V. (Berlin LGBT Pride Association). The organization was formed at the end of 1999. The association was meant to relieve the three previous coordinators: the "Sonntags-Club", "LSVD" and "Mann-o-Meter", who had been organizing the "CSD Berlin" from 1994 to 1999. Each year, the theme, motto and political demands of the CSD Parade are determined in so-called Pride Forums. These are open meetings that can be attended by anyone.

References

External links