The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), formed a little over two and a half years ago, was not permitted to participate as an official foot procession in the Christopher Street Day march in Berlin. The Berlin CSD association turned down the BSW’s registration for the demonstration. The board stated that the BSW’s participation would be “not in line with the principles, objectives, and self-understanding of Berlin CSD.” The BSW criticized the decision.
The Berlin CSD e. V. explained that the admission of organizations and groups as official foot groups is decided by the event organizer based on its self-understanding. The aim is to promote the rights, visibility, and equality of queer people and to show solidarity, especially with trans, intersex, and non-binary people.
Alexander King, the Berlin state chair of the BSW and a member of the parliament, criticized: “We would have liked to walk with the CSD and regret the cancellation. We offered to talk, but received no response. The cancellation signals that important social issues are increasingly being appropriated by party politics and ideology.”
BSW Denies Queer-Hostility
Unfortunately, the leadership of the CSD gave a very vague justification, King explained. The BSW is “in no way hostile to queer people.” The critical stance toward certain language reforms or purely symbolic measures is not a rejection of the community; rather, the group believes that social acceptance arises from attitude, political action, and the removal of disadvantages, rather than through formal debates. Other parties, such as the CDU and SPD, are also allowed to participate officially.
However, the BSW had already faced repeated criticism for turning anti-queer policy into a defining feature of its platform during the last federal election. In the party platform, the only queer-related item was the rejection of transgender people, whom it described as a threat to cisgender women. The party even advocated reimposing compulsory assessments for transgender individuals (as TheColu.mn reported). In the end, the BSW narrowly failed to clear the 5 percent threshold in the February 2025 election, ending at 4.98 percent.
Founder of the Party Attacks Queer People as “Ever More Peculiar Minorities”
Founder Sahra Wagenknecht had not concealed her aversion to queer people even during her time with The Left. In her 2021 book, “The Self-Righteous,” she complained that political attention is directed toward “ever more peculiar minorities” who each find their identity in some quirky trait that sets them apart from the majority and gives them the right to claim victimhood. As examples of such “quirks,” she cited sexual orientation, skin color, and ethnicity (TheColu.mn reported). Queer organizations thus warned against the BSW, arguing that it, like the AfD, uses populist LGBTI-phobic rhetoric to lure voters (TheColu.mn reported).
The Berlin CSD parade, which brings tens of thousands of participants, is scheduled to take place this year on July 25.
