Gelsenkirchen Pride 2027

Gelsenkirchen has its own Pride. It takes place in May, close to the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia, and combines a march through the city centre with a street festival afterwards. The march gathered at Alter Markt, and the festival that followed took place on Heinrich-König-Platz with a stage programme, drag and speeches. The event sees itself as openly political and has been held under the banner of Pride against the far right.

The organisers included together Gelsenkirchen, the city's queer youth centre for LGBTQ+ young people aged fourteen to twenty-six. It is run by SVLS e.V., the association that also operates the Lebenslust counselling centre.

One edition had to be called off shortly before it began. About an hour before the start, police told the organisers about a vague attack warning aimed at a Pride event somewhere in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the team cancelled both the march and the festival, opening its own rooms as a drop-in space instead. It later emerged that the threat was apparently Islamist in motivation and that investigators were looking into a young person living in Switzerland. Pride in Gelsenkirchen continued after that.

Behind the event is a network that works all year. The city has drawn up an action plan to promote acceptance of sexual and gender diversity, developed together with city departments, together Gelsenkirchen and Rosa Strippe, the LGBTQ+ counselling centre in neighbouring Bochum. Visitors with questions about Pride or about queer life in the city can contact together or the Lebenslust counselling centre on Wildenbruchstraße, which share the same building.