LGBTQ* people and people with various disabilities face similar political struggles for respect, visibility, and representation. They are also subjected to, or threatened by, extreme right-wing violence, which has increased in recent years. Christiane Leidinger analyzes political dynamics in Germany, highlighting moments and alliances of resistance.
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Mönchengladbach, spring 2024: A rock is thrown at a house where people with cognitive disabilities live. It narrowly misses a window. Another projectile hits the glass door of the local Lebenshilfe office, the organization that runs the residential facility. Both stones bear violent words referencing far-right history and crimes: “Euthanasia is the solution.” It is a threat of mass murder. The message is intended to spread fear and terror among people with cognitive disabilities and their relatives and friends. Apart from the taz, there was no reporting on this in Germany, nor was there any public debate. Even after further cases came to light, this did not change. The Lebenshilfe in Mönchengladbach responded with a solidarity event and rally.
In most cases, the victims themselves try to raise public awareness that they are subjected to or threatened by extreme right-wing violence. This takes a lot of energy and time, and it also carries risks, such as not being heard, being trivialized, and being victimized a second time.
Violence against the LGBTQ* community
In Germany, people affected by racism have primarily been the targets of violent attacks by the extreme right. The figures collected by the Association of Counseling Centers (VBRG) on extreme right-wing, anti-Semitic, and racist violence are alarmingly high.
Intersectionality exacerbates the situation: since 2024, the LGBTQ* community has increasingly been targeted by organized, extreme-right-wing mobilizations before, during, and after their participation in CSDs. Neo-Nazi groups disrupt events spontaneously and/or register queer-hostile demonstrations. Right-wing street activists are often young – some are nearly children – and include young women. Many belong to new online neo-Nazi groups that first appeared in 2024, such as Deutsche Jugend Voran (DJV). Old cadres of far-right parties, such as Die Heimat (formerly NPD) and its youth organization Junge Nationalisten (JN), as well as Der III. Weg.
Due in part to media coverage of the new neo-Nazi youth groups, the CSD disturbances have received somewhat greater attention. Nevertheless, it seems that, thus far, society has only recognized the extent of attacks against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people in isolated cases. The everyday nature, severity, and effects of the threat seem to have hardly been understood so far. Yet, far-right activities against LGBTQ* people are widespread, and violence is central to them. In Germany, this violence has a long history dating back to the German Empire. Various forms of repression and persecution of LGBTQ* people have continued even after 1945. The tip of the iceberg of anti-queer right-wing extremist violence is murder.
Widespread and sometimes underestimated forms of violence
In addition to physical violence against LGBTQ*, psychological violence plays a significant role in confrontations with the far-right. This includes organized threats against CSDs. These threats affect organizing groups and their spaces, as well as travel to and from demonstrations and the return journey. Butyric acid attacks aim to prevent demonstrations or at least disrupt them. Through these attacks, the far right attempts to undermine fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression and assembly, and to prevent political participation.
In general, bars, clubs, and projects are targeted. Accompanying this are the online and on-site propaganda campaigns of new right-wing and neo-Nazi groups and parties against the queer community, including stickers and flyers. One thing is certain: violence against individuals is intended to send a message to the entire group. The violence aims to intimidate, unsettle, and force people to retreat into private life.
Far-right violence against LGBTIAQ+ communities
At first glance, these forms of violence have one central goal: to undermine the hard-won social visibility and representation of LGBTIAQ+ and queer communities in public spaces. Additionally, social and political participation is to be thwarted. Right-wing extremists aim to stir up unrest (resulting in vulnerability within the community), insecurity (creating the potential for division), intimidation (prompting withdrawal), and fear (causing paralysis).
Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that right-wing extremists also aim to suppress self-organization altogether. They seek to cut off community-oriented access to information and knowledge for LGBTIAQ+, to prevent collective and self-determined knowledge formation, and to hinder further community building. This can include preventing appropriate meetings and social work infrastructure offerings, such as target group-specific counseling or open youth work. ‘Dating ambushes’ against gay men for the purpose of targeted violence and extreme right-wing attacks on the commemoration of the historical persecution of LSTI* are particularly perfidious.
The intention is to reverse the visibility of the emancipatory and repressive histories that have been fought for over decades, suggesting that the persecution never took place or was necessary and legitimate. The same applies to the destruction or neo-Nazi marking of places of remembrance for the gay rights movement and queer subculture since the late 19th century. These actions attempt to destroy the empowering effects of being inscribed in history as social, cultural, and political subjects. Theft, symbolic defacement, or destruction of public signs of recognition and solidarity with the LGBTIAQ+ community, such as rainbow flags in or in front of stores, signals right-wing space-taking and dominance.
Additionally, the far right utilizes the well-known strategies of devaluation and pathologization to denigrate, stir up resentment, and divide society.
The ‘völkisch community’ envisioned by the far right seeks to maintain a heteronormative social order, reverse LGBTIAQ+ emancipation, and push back LGBTIAQ+ politics and visibility, relegating LGBTIAQ+ people to the private sphere through violence and threats. From an extreme right-wing perspective, the goal is to spread ideology and offensive disinformation and attempt to develop and shift the boundaries of right-wing narratives.
Reframing serves the purpose of internal and external mobilization, as well as the fundamental goal of destabilizing democratic society, halting further democratization, and ultimately creating a completely different, non-democratic country. The authors’ collective Feministische Intervention (AK Fe.In) concludes: “Since 2024 at the latest, CSDs and Prides have probably become the most important hub of the far-right culture war in Germany.” Anti-feminism and transphobia play a central role in the ‘völkisch project.’ The Amadeu Antonio Foundation’s Security Report refers to a “strategic lever” for shifting discourse and threatening equality. All of this consumes resources at all levels – especially individual, organizational, and financial – and creates pressure.
Activities and resistance from the LGBTIQA+ community
The situation is partly new and partly exacerbated. It creates a defensive position from which everyone, both personally and as a community, must repeatedly fight their way out. This is exactly what is happening: There were significantly more CSDs this year, with a total of 245 events. There is no sign of retreat. Furthermore, after facing intimidation, CSD organizers are taking a clear stand with their demonstration slogans: “Now more than ever!” at CSD Mönchengladbach and “Come with attitude – or don’t come at all!” in Koblenz.
The LGBTIQA* community’s resistance is clever, loud, creative, and effective. One empowering idea is Hydi, the Nazi frustration hydra of the CSD Cottbus association. Hydi combats rainbow flag theft with a simple message: “Steal one of our flags during Pride season, and we’ll hang up two new ones.”” Frustrating neo-Nazis and other right-wingers can be a lot of fun! Other developments are encouraging as well, such as heterosexual solidarity, the Straight Against Hate parade, and the presence of heterosexual allies at East German CSDs. There are also joint calls for CSDs and a Rainbow Protection Fund for security measures and political education. The CSD in Bautzen received anti-fascist support, ensuring solidarity and self-protection onsite and on the return journey.
Invisibilized people with cognitive disabilities
LGBTQ* people and people with various disabilities structurally share political struggles for respect, visibility, and representation. This group is subject to extreme right-wing violence that is hardly visible, if at all. Even mass death threats, such as those in Mönchengladbach, do not lead to a public outcry. These are not isolated cases, and the same applies to killings.
Fundamentally, more attention should be paid to forms of violence that lie between psychological and physical violence or combine both. I have described attacks on residents with cognitive disabilities, as mentioned earlier, as ‘extreme right-wing, post-Nazi, mass destruction, threat violence.’ Similar to Jews, Sinti, and Roma, as well as LGBTQ* people, they report being confronted in public spaces with extreme right-wing murder fantasies referencing the Nazi era.
This summer, Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences (HSD) and IRex at the University of Tübingen, in collaboration with the organization Lebenshilfe (Mönchengladbach), kicked off the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary joint research and transfer project “Mapping Far-Right Violence Against People with (Cognitive) Disabilities, Resistance, and Professional Approaches” (MAVIOPA). The project analyzes the forms, locations, and consequences of violence as well as resistance, such as activities or protests. The resistance of people with different disabilities is diverse, creative, and vocal. They hold their own demonstrations against the right wing, participate in others’ demonstrations, and engage in documentation projects such as #AbleismusTötet and filmic explorations such as ‘Wir werden nie wieder Opfer sein!’ (We will never be victims again!), remembrance projects, commemorative culture, and new self-organizations, such as Krüppel gegen Rechts (Cripples Against the Right).
Far-right violence always attacks democracy. It affects all of us. This violence must be recognized as such and addressed at various levels with substantial resources. Not sometime in the future. Now.