Gay Guide to Leipzig
Leipzig's peaceful Monday demonstrations helped bring down the Berlin Wall in 1989, and in 1992 the city held its first Christopher Street Day. Germany repealed the last of Paragraph 175 in 1994 and opened marriage to same-sex couples in 2017.
The scene is small but lively, powered by the city's big student population, and it is split between the centre and the west. In the centre, Havanna Club in the Theaterpassage is a long-running gay bar, and Richy on Universitätsstraße and APART on Reichsstraße are easygoing bars for a first drink. Stargayte on Otto-Schill-Straße is the sauna.
West of the centre in Lindenau, Pixi is a collective-run queer neighbourhood bar with parties, karaoke, drag and readings, and RosaLinde, nearby on Demmeringstraße, offers queer counselling, education and a place to meet. Juicy, a queer-feminist sex shop, is south in Connewitz.
CSD Leipzig takes place in July, with a demonstration from the Marktplatz through the historic centre followed by a street festival.