Christopher Street Day (CSD) are annual LGBTQ+ Pride events in Germany and Switzerland taking place between June and August. The most prominent CSD events are Berlin Pride, CSD Hamburg, and ColognePride in Germany, and CSD Zürich in Switzerland.
Christopher Street Day (CSD) are annual LGBTQ+ Pride events in Germany and Switzerland taking place between June and August. The most prominent CSD events are Berlin Pride, CSD Hamburg, and ColognePride in Germany, and CSD Zürich in Switzerland.
The CSD is held in memory of the Stonewall riots, the first big uprising of LGBT people against police assaults that took place at the Stonewall Inn, a bar on Manhattan, New York City's Christopher Street in the district of Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969.
On Saturday, June 27, 1970, marches to mark the first anniversary of Stonewall were held in Chicago and San Francisco, followed on Sunday, June 28, 1970, by the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade in New York and the Christopher Street West Association Parade in Los Angeles; the four gatherings were the first Pride parades in United States history. To accommodate the interests of the many different groups participating, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee named the days leading up to the march Gay Pride Week. Pride Month is now celebrated internationally in June.
The first German Christopher Street Day took place in Berlin on June 30, 1979 with 450 demonstrators. It subsequently spread to other cities throughout Germany.
CSD Berlin started in 1979. Now almost every large city in Germany celebrates CSD, with the largest in Berlin (Berlin Pride), Hamburg (Hamburg Pride) and Cologne (Cologne Pride). When Cologne hosted Europride in 2002, it attracted 1.4 million participants and spectators to the city.
Christopher Street Day events do not always take place on the historic date of June 27, but on different weekends between June and August. CSD events often include demonstrations, parades, and street fairs. A typical Christopher Street Day Parade includes floats as well as walking groups usually provided by and made up of members of LGBT organizations.
CSD events have been described as having a festive party atmosphere. It is typical to see many drag queens, drag kings, and other people colorfully dressed. BDSM enthusiasts also often participate in CSDs. In addition to the Parade and the final rallies, in many cities there are days or up to whole weeks of street festivals and cultural events with artists, political events, lectures, readings, parties and other festivities.
In Berlin, Kreuzberg Pride (also known as Kreuzberger CSD, "Transgenialer" CSD or X*CSD), an alternative CSD event that centered on radical politics, ran from 1998 to 2013. This event spotlights issues such as refugees, drug treatment, housing and gentrifiation.
Politicians often participate in CSDs, including:
In some cities, politicians are also patrons of the CSD, for example in Hamburg, the former First Mayor Ortwin Runde, and Ole von Beust, in Dresden Mayor Ingolf Rossberg, in Würzburg Claudia Roth, in Munich the former Mayors Christian Ude and Dieter Reiter and in Brunswick, the former Federal Minister Jürgen Trittin.
Over 150 cities in Germany hold annual CSD events, with the most prominent ones being in Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne.
![Christopher Street Day parade on Helmut Kohl Avenue [de] in Berlin. 2023.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christopher_Street_Day_Berlin_on_the_Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Stra%C3%9Fe_2023-07-22_01.jpg)
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