Gay people in Germany facing more hate, violence, group says

"Hate, incitement and violence against us have reached a new, sad low," said Andre Lehmann from the Queere Vielfalt association, whose name means "queer diversity."

"The number of queerphobic hate crimes has been rising for years," said Lehmann.

This trend continued last year, according to security sources. Police recorded a significant increase in the number of crimes against people because of their sexual orientation, the sources said ahead of the release of official statistics.

There were 1,499 crimes against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people nationwide in 2023, according to Interior Ministry data. Of these, 288 were violent crimes.

But a large number of cases go unreported, the association warned, because "either crimes are not correctly classified as queerphobic or are not reported at all out of shame or fear."

"Attacks on individuals, same-sex couples and places associated with the queer community are on the rise in public," Lehmann told dpa. "Queer hostility has once again become perfectly acceptable in our society."

There has been no public outcry, added Lehman, who is a board member of the association.

Group demands better protection

Lehmann demanded legislative changes for more support. "We are a large group persecuted under National Socialism that to this day is still not granted protection from discrimination in Article 3 of the Basic Law."

This is no longer acceptable, given the increase in social tensions and daily attacks on queer people, he said.

Pride demonstrations are increasingly being attacked by right-wing extremists, Lehmann added.