My city's pride parade was today. I couldn't attend due to the heatwave (medical concerns), but I still have a lot of thoughts about the politics of it and a few things made me very angry. (long rant)
Let's start with the positives: For the first time ever, Munich now has an openly gay mayor. It is tradition that the mayor gives a big speech at the end of the parade, and acts as one of the biggest faces of the entire pride event - to send out the signal that this city is a safe space for queer people. Bavaria as a state in general is very conservative and not the greatest place to be as a queer person, so the allyship does mean a lot. But the fact that this time, the mayor is an actual proud member of the community is awesome. He attended with his partner and they looked so happy, it was super sweet.
With rising conservatism and movement from the Right to take away queer rights, the CSD is returning to its roots as a political protest. It's kind of shifted into a weekend-long party over the last few years, which made a lot of citizens (rightfully) very angry. Tons of alcohol, drunken people making out in the streets, noise, littering... The conservative argument "they make everyone uncomfortable by creating an unsafe environment" is hard to disprove if pride turns into a drug sex fest. The problem isn't that they're queer. If someone's uncomfortable because they see someone queer, that's their problem. The issue is that they lack the decency to behave in public by not trashing the city. So it's a very good thing that pride is becoming more political again, because it seems a lot of people have forgotten we need to fight for our rights instead of just partying and being an asshole, which jeopardizes the image of the community.
That being said, the political messaging is inconsistent. A lot of political groups always join the parade, and this year, a previously banned party was allowed to attend with a big car again: the CSU ("Christian Social Union"). They're the Bavarian branch of Germany's biggest conservative party, and they don't like trans people. A number of old gay men are prominent party members, but they voted against gay marriage and heavily advocate for "traditional Christian family values" in their politics. That means if you're not a cis dude with a cis stay-at-home mom wife and two German children, you don't fit into their world view and they will do their best to make your life difficult until you assimilate. They're also ridiculously corrupt and mostly care about what their lobbying partners want (so they pass laws for more coal instead of solar power, more money for car manufacturers, less strict labor protection and strengthening the military - they literally want to reestablish compulsory military service for anyone over 18). But because the church still plays a big role for a lot of people here and they're the Christian party, the countryside and old people and generally many people that don't read into politics that much vote for them. They are basically the (slightly better) German version of Republicans. Slightly better because they don't want to actively hunt down marginalized groups (for the most part).
Their pride vehicles have been stopped by seating blockades a few years ago and they've been outright banned from attending the parade in 2024 because they wanted to ban a drag queen reading in a city library and advocated against the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz (SBGG), a now active law that makes name and gender changes for trans people way easier and way less discriminating. I have personally made use of that law a few months ago. What would've previously been a years-long process with multiple expensive court sessions and invasive aggressive and discriminating questioning by psychiatrists is now a simple form, a small wait time and one (1!) visit to a registry office without having to justify yourself whatsoever. This law saves lives and the CSU is doing their hardest to revoke it. Yet they're allowed to participate in the pride parade with a big-ass car.
Their party's queer network isn't even called that. It's a "gay and lesbian network" (not that they have many female members in the first place), not a queer one. They've implemented a Bavaria-wide ruling that puts everyone that uses the SBGG to change their gender marker on a list stored somewhere by the police. (The last time Germany had a list for trans people, it was used to hunt them down during the Holocaust. We also have an increasingly popular far-right party that would definitely use that list to hunt us down if they could). Furthermore, they're currently pushing for a new ruling on federal level: if someone makes use of the SBGG and then moves somewhere new, their previous name and gender should be automatically reported to the new city's police department, forcibly outing them and putting them on police records. What's even more absurd is that the SBGG itself protects trans folks from being forcefully outed, so that ruling would directly oppose that law. It's safe to say that they don't care about trans people and actively work to revoke their rights. You could even say that because of this, they don't give a shit if a few trans people die as a consequence. Someone like that shouldn't be allowed to walk a pride parade.
Our mayor refused to make a statement about it. It's clear he opposed this (he very loudly advocated for their ban in the first place), but he doesn't get to decide who joins and openly defying that ruling would probably radicalize voters. I'm not mad at him, any other response would probably be worse.
Still, I am so fucking mad at the organizers.