“On Wednesday, Bavaria’s government trumpeted that it would implement a QUEER Action Plan and announced funding for three projects totaling 350,000 euros (TheColu.mn reported). Now, however, the Bavarian LSVD+ state association is making something clear: ‘There is no decided action plan yet. It has neither been approved nor is there a final draft available.'”
“The funding announcement does not replace a strategic, comprehensive plan, nor does it reflect the breadth of demands that the queer community has developed in recent years. It is also unclear how the announced funding amount relates to the overall budget of a future action plan. After all, the CSU/Freie-Wähler state government has not disclosed what total financial volume is planned and how nationwide implementation would be guaranteed.”
“We welcome that the state government is pursuing the adoption of an action plan,” explained Markus Apel, a member of the LSVD+-state board. “That Bavaria is even moving toward an action plan is not least due to the sustained public pressure from the queer community and civil society. Now the state government is urged to quickly present a complete draft, involve professional organizations appropriately again, approve it, and fund it in a way that allows it to actually have an impact.”
The LSVD+ Bavaria urged the state government to carry the process forward in a transparent and consistent manner and to launch the Bavarian Queer Action Plan as a binding strategy against discrimination and violence. In a civil-society measures catalog from 2023 (PDF), supported by more than 70 organizations, the broad set of necessary demands was laid out, including education and prevention, health, anti-discrimination, legal protection, cultural funding, research, and the sustainable safeguarding of queer infrastructures.
Bavaria is the last of the 16 federal states to have started such an action plan against queer hostility. In March 2023, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) announced during the campaign that such a plan would indeed be launched. Just two weeks ago, the state parliament’s Greens criticized that the government had still not presented a plan.
