Cologne CSD 2025: Tens of thousands celebrate for LGBTQ rights despite hostility!

Cologne CSD 2025: Tens of thousands celebrate for LGBTQ rights despite hostility!

Today, July 6, 2025, Christopher Street Day (CSD) is marching through the streets of Cologne and is creating a spectacular scene: tens of thousands of spectators have gathered to support the colorful parades and the passionate demonstrators. There are around 60,000 participants and 90 floats celebrating the diversity and rights of the LGBTQ community. The mood is charged, but it is also accompanied by a feeling of worry, like us ZDF Today reported.

This largest CSD parade in Europe doesn't just have a colorful preview page. The police are deployed with increased forces to protect the event. In view of current developments, this is also urgently necessary, because concerns are growing: Sophie Koch, the federal queer commissioner, has already expressed concern about the increase in anti-queer crimes. More and more hostility is hitting the sexual and gender minority and the fears are shared by prominent voices such as Jens Pielhau, the board of the Cologne Pride association.

A historical review

To understand the relevance of the CSD, it is worth taking a look back into history. The origins of the CSD go back to the Stonewall uprising in New York in 1969, which is considered a catalyst for one of the largest emancipation movements in the world. Back then, on June 28, 1969, there was a violent riot against a police checkpoint at the Stonewall Inn. This uprising set off a chain reaction that eventually led to the creation of political groups such as the Gay Liberation Front. The first CSD in Germany took place in Berlin in 1979 with around 450 participants, but this movement has now established itself in numerous cities and is an integral part of social life.

Today, the Cologne CSD is not only an expression of joy about the freedom of sexual identity, but also a sign of resistance against the threats that people in the LGBTQ community are currently exposed to. Again Deutschlandfunk notes, sexual and gender minorities have increasingly had to contend with hostility in recent years.

Current challenges

Today's CSD in Cologne is therefore under special circumstances. The organizers and representatives of the LGBTQ community are alarmed by the massive threats made by extreme right-wing groups against such events in Germany. Despite these challenges, the CSD remains an important platform for visibility and an invitation to develop one's own identity. A celebration that is accompanied by an unequivocal call for solidarity is needed more than ever.

The CSD in Cologne not only shows how far society has come, but also that there is a lot to do. Current developments remind us to always keep in mind respect for diversity in order to achieve a common goal: a world in which every person, regardless of their sexual orientation or identity, can live safely and freely.