“We are love”: flowers and messages in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Image: keystone
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I was at the Berlin CSD on Saturday. A little later, the very freedom that makes Pride possible for a few hours was attacked. What the attack showed me.
July 29, 2026, 6:10 p.mJuly 29, 2026, 6:10 p.m
On Saturday we danced through Berlin. Rainbow flags everywhere, glitter, loud music, people on lovemobiles, people kissing, laughing and celebrating.
I was at the CSD with two friends. For one day, the streets belonged to people who often have to ask themselves in everyday life how visible they can be. Can I hold this hand? Can I kiss my partner? Can I wear this top without being stared at, insulted or threatened?
At a Pride parade, these questions become quieter. Hundreds of thousands of people move together through the city. The police all around. Suddenly what normally stands out is part of a large, visible normality.
A Pride parade is therefore more than a parade. It is a temporary public shelter. A place where love doesn’t have to be explained, hidden or excused.
Later, this very freedom was attacked.
A man drove into a crowd on the edge of the Berlin CSD. One woman died and dozens were injured. The investigators assume an Islamist attack. This didn’t happen on the actual festival site, but on its edge, in Berlin’s Tiergarten. Where the specially protected space ended and the ordinary public began again.
That won’t let me go.
Name Islamism
According to media reports, a video was found on the suspect’s cell phone in which he swore loyalty to the Islamic State. He was already known to the authorities as an Islamist.
This ideology must be clearly identified and combated. Religiously based extremism is directed against the foundations of a free society. Queer people are an enemy for such movements because their existence stands for self-determination.
Video: watson/kilian marti, elena maria müller
Anyone who only speaks of “hate” in general terms out of fear of racist instrumentalization is describing the act incompletely. But the short-sighted conclusion would be just as wrong: to explain the crime with origin or migration itself.
The attacker was a German citizen with Lebanese roots. According to his father, he grew up in a Shia family. At the same time, he apparently wanted to join IS – a terrorist organization that persecutes and murders Shiites.
This inconsistency shows how little origin alone explains. What matters is the ideology: their networks, their propaganda, their contempt for freedom, women and queer people.
Don’t pass on hate
Right-wing parties like the AfD are already trying to fit the attack into their migration narrative. After the crime, the Berlin AfD shared responsibility for the “catastrophic migration policy of the past few years”. An Islamist attack quickly becomes an indictment of migration as a whole.
This doesn’t help queer people. The vast majority have nothing to do with Islamist terror. And it is precisely among Muslims that queer people live who are themselves threatened by this ideology.
Flowers are laid: At the crime scene in Berlin’s Tiergarten.Image: keystone
The Berlin CSD association has therefore done both: named Islamist terror as a concrete threat and at the same time warned against exploiting the act to incite hate speech against Muslims or people of certain origins.
That’s exactly what’s needed – otherwise the hate will just be passed on.
A shelter behind barriers is not enough
This year’s Berlin CSD was held under the motto “Attitude is hot”. Political demands included a more effective fight against hate crime. After this weekend it is clear how urgent this demand is.
Many queer people only feel free enough to show their clothes, their bodies and their love the way they want at a Pride parade. Things change again on the way home. The rainbow sticker is removed. A black jacket goes over the glitter top. The partner’s hand is released before turning into the next side street.
Queer freedom is not reflected in how colorful a city appears during a parade. A shelter that only exists once a year and behind barriers is not enough.
Queer freedom is evident on the way to the train station. On the night bus. Before school. In the neighborhood. Where no large crowd and no police cordon offer protection.
Queer freedom: It is far from guaranteed everywhere. Image: keystone
This requires people who object when queer people are insulted. Authorities that take threats seriously. And a policy that combats religious extremism and works preventatively, without creating a general suspicion against Muslims.
The attack in Berlin aimed to turn queer visibility into fear. Our response must ensure that the freedom of the CSD does not end at the last police barricade.
Because love between people is not a danger to our society.
It’s one of the reasons it exists.