From Monday, June 26, to Sunday, July 2, 2023, the second »Campus Pride Week« took place at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar on the occasion of »Christopher Street Day (CSD) Weimar« (July 1, 2023). For one week, sexual and gender diversity was celebrated on campus and queer history, art and culture were brought into focus. The varied programme invited all members and affiliates of the university to engage with the multi-layered realities of queer people's lives and offered members of the queer communities various opportunities to exchange and network.
The programme was organised by the Equal Opportunity Office and the Diversity Department in cooperation with the CSD Weimar and the AIDS-Hilfe Weimar & Ostthüringen e.V., as well as by student lecturers of the Bauhaus.Module »Porn is Political!« (Summer Semester 2023) in cooperation with the Queerfilmfestival Weimar.
The 2023 »Campus Pride Week« officially started on the Monday before Christopher Street Day (CSD) Weimar with the raising of the »Intersex-inclusive Progress Pride Flag«. On the central balcony of the Main Building, the flag set a visible sign for diversity and against discrimination. Prof. Peter Benz, President of the Bauhaus University Weimar, explained:
»The Bauhaus-Universität Weimar welcomes all people. We do not tolerate discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity and are therefore continuously working to further remove barriers for students and employees, especially trans/inter/non-binary (TIN*) people. For this reason, we are flying the ›Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag.‹«
Here you can learn more about the history and meaning of the »Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag«.
On Monday evening, the project group »Porn is political!«, consisting of student lecturers from the Bauhaus.Module of the same name (Summer Semester 2023), invited students to a panel discussion in the Bauhaus.Atelier in cooperation with the Queerfilmfestival Weimar. Under the motto »Porn is political!«, experts from PornBetter and the Queerfilmfestival Weimar, as well as the DIY porn performers Ann Antidote and Satys Fire discussed the political dimension and social relevance of queer-feminist pornography.
In a joint discussion, they explored, among other things, the question of how pornographic film representation can highlight and disrupt patriarchal structures in our everyday lives. The subversive potential of queer-feminist pornography with regard to normative forms of representation of bodies, sexuality and identity markers such as race, class, gender, age etc. was also examined.
Following the panel discussion, the project group »Porn is political!« together with the Queerfilmfestival Weimar showed a selection of queer-feminist pornographic films at the Bauhaus.Atelier.
The programme continued on Thursday, June 29, with open-air cinema on the lawn in front of the historic Van de Velde Building. In cooperation with the CSD Weimar and with the kind support of the Lichthauskino Weimar, the Equal Opportunity Office showed the indigenous-queer coming-of-age film »Wildhood«.
On Friday, June 30, the gay porn actor Florian Klein alias »Hans Berlin« came to the Bauhaus.Atelier. In conversation with Tino Ranacher (AIDS-Hilfe Weimar & Ostthüringen e.V.), he talked about his life with HIV, his commitment against the HIV stigma as a role model of the Deutsche Aidshilfe's prevention campaign »ICH WEISS WAS ICH TU« (IWWIT), and of course also about his job as an internationally successful porn star. Other topics included growing older in the gay community and in the porn industry, as well as the safer sex strategies »protection through therapy« and »PrEP« (pre-exposure prophylaxis).
As in the previous year, the »Campus Pride Week« ended on the Sunday after the CSD Weimar with the university's participation in the memorial service for the »Pink Triangle Prisoners« of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps. The memorial event is organised annually by the AIDS-Hilfe Weimar and the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and commemorates the homosexual victims of National Socialism.
Together with the CSD Weimar and other queer associations from Thuringia, members and affiliates of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar commemorated the approximately 650 men who were marked as homosexual with the »pink triangle« by the National Socialists and deported to the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps between 1937 and 1945. Dr. Michael Wallner, Equal Opportunity and Diversity Advisor, laid down a mourning bouquet by the memorial stone for the men persecuted and murdered as homosexuals by the Nazis on behalf of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.