PHIL’S TAKE:
Many people ask: why do we still need Pride Month, especially here in Germany, a country that has enshrined equal rights into law and prides itself on being open and progressive? This column is my answer.
I live in Berlin, and I know how lucky that makes me. This city is a bubble, a beautiful, wonderfully weird bubble of openness, queerness, and radical self-expression. That spirit lives on the streets, in the bars, in the culture of this place. And it lives in many workplaces too, including mine: no prejudice, no whispers, no second-guessing whether I can be fully myself in a meeting room or a Slack channel. For that, I am genuinely and deeply grateful.
And yet I still hesitate before holding my boyfriend’s hand on the U-Bahn. There’s a split second of calculation that happens almost unconsciously: Who’s watching? Is this safe? That moment of self-censorship is a reminder that discrimination doesn’t vanish at the city limits, not in Berlin, and certainly not across the world. Whether you live in a progressive bubble or a country where simply being who you are can cost you your freedom or your life, the experience of having to think twice before showing love to your favorite person is something too many of us still share.
And as long as that hesitation exists, that quiet, exhausting calculation, Pride isn’t finished. The generations before me fought for the rights I hold today, and those rights are never so secure that they don’t need defending. Every time I choose to kiss my boyfriend in public anyway, I’m not just living my life. I’m honoring everyone who made that possible, and making it a little more possible for the person who comes after me.
LUKI’S TAKE:
Pride Month is a reminder of how important visibility, acceptance, and authenticity still are. I’ve been working at Press Factory for the past five years, and I’m grateful to be in an environment where people can be open about who they are. In my personal life, I’m currently single but I am dating, and I appreciate that meeting people and expressing myself can feel natural and uncomplicated.
Pride is both a celebration of progress and a moment to remember that creating inclusive spaces at work and beyond still matters.
CHRISTOPHER’S TAKE:
What moves me most about Pride Month isn’t the spectacle, even though I love the spectacle. It’s the collective exhale. For a few weeks a year, the caution gets to be a little smaller. You don’t have to calculate, scan, or weigh things up. For a moment, you get to imagine what it would be like to simply be among people who understand, without having to explain anything at all.
I often think about how much energy it takes to constantly renegotiate your own normality. Not in big fights, but in small moments that almost no one sees. The way you automatically scan a restaurant before smiling at your partner. The second you spend wondering whether to approach a man you find attractive, not because you’re shy, but because you never know what’s coming back. Rejection would be fine. But it could be more than that. This isn’t paranoia. It’s learned caution. And it runs deep.
I also think about those for whom this space doesn’t exist at all. Not in their city, not in their country, not in their family. People for whom showing love carries not just social risks, but legal ones. Pride Month, to me, isn’t a celebration for those who have already arrived. It’s a promise to everyone still on their way. Visibility isn’t an end in itself, it’s a signal. You are not alone, and you should never have to be.
As long as somewhere, someone is thinking twice before simply being themselves, this month hasn’t finished what it set out to do.
