CSD München 2022

On Saturday Munich is celebrating pride and especially this time of the year people can hardly save themselves from pinkwashing and most companies shout "diversity" once a year for profit reasons, Jojo and Sandra have expressed their displeasure and made it clear with which perspective Consent Calling will go to pride.

Because the battles for diversity and visibility come to nothing if they are not connected with structural questions and intersectional perspectives.

Therefore, check out our statement, show your solidarity, criticize pinkwashing and support all struggles that make our society less discriminatory and fairer.

For this reason: see you on Saturday on the street! To celebrate and also to show that we have not yet reached our goal in our fights!

Transcript:

Sandra: Hey! This Saturday (July 16) Munich is celebrating Pride. And in many other cities around the world Christopher Street Days, rainbow parades or commemorations of the Stonewall Riots 1969 have already taken place. For us as Consent Calling, it’s no question whether to join the protest on this day or not. To protest for a society in which all people are visible and safe - regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Jojo: But besides the pinkwashing and the fact that most companies veil themselves in rainbow colors once a year mainly for marketing reasons, it also annoys us when Pride Month only serves to loudly propagate diversity without drawing political consequences. Of course, visibility has to be step one, but everythign beyond is about ending discrimination - on all levels.

Sandra: Because we still live in a society where our gender influences how much we earn. Besides cis women, it's primarily trans people who work under precarious conditions and are disproportionately affected by unemployment or poverty. We live in a society where lesbian couples are sexualized and objectified a hell of a lot, and relationships without the existence of a cis dude are less recognized. For people who don't identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, any interaction with authorities is accompanied by discrimination.

Jojo: And these are just a few examples. There are innumerable forms of discrimination and therefore reasons to take to the streets on July 16. What we must never forget is that these are not individual problems of queer people. They are collective problems, deeply rooted in the capitalist, patriarchal and gender-binary system. And so we need collective solutions - anti-capitalist, emancipatory solutions built by solidarity, that keep in mind the big picture.

Sandra: We therefore say:
No more symbolic politics!
Let's start building political alliances and changing the structures that keep marginalized people oppressed in the first place. Let's consider and critique capitalist and patriarchal constraints together. And change the structures of domination that ensure that women, queer people, or racial minorities have less privilege and thus less access to power, recognition, participation, money, opportunity, health, etc.

Jojo: It's not about showing visibility once a year and asking questions about representation. Neither should we settle for solutions at the individual level. Instead of focusing on individual experiences per se, we need to look at their conditions and causes and turn to the system in its overall structure. On July 16 as well as every other day of the year!

On that note - see you in the streets to fight for the liberation of the sexuality of all and of society as a whole.