Mayor of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district of Berlin Clara Herrmann has written to the city’s transport minister to propose the neighbourhood depict queer couples in traffic light symbols.
The jaunty Ampelmann is an iconic symbol of Berlin. But as a hub of queer culture, Mayor for Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Clara Herrmann (Greens) believes the city is ready for an update.
Herrmann has written to Berlin Transport Minister Manja Schreiner (CDU) to suggest that the neighbourhood’s Ampelmännchen be replaced by queer couples holding hands.
“I would like to introduce a visible symbol into the public space in order to continue improving the visibility of LGBTQ+ people in the neighbourhood,” Herrmann wrote in her letter.
The idea was previously suggested by the Ampelmann brand but was never implemented.
Speaking to Tagesspiegel, press officer for the Berlin Senate of Mobility, Transportation, Climate and Environment Britta Elm explained that the department would look into implementing the change in time for next year’s pride month.
While Herrmann and other Berlin politicians see the move as an opportunity to increase queer visibility, others are more sceptical of the specific motives. “It is nice to see that people are united in their belief that queer visibility belongs in Berlin,” Left Party Culture Minister Klaus Lederer told Tagesspiegel, but warned that “It is crucial that Berlin’s claim as the queer capital is not denigrated into a tourism marketing slogan that politics exhausts in symbolic gestures”.
If Herrmann’s proposal were to go ahead, the Berlin district would be following similar steps taken in Munich and Vienna. Traffic lights depicting queer couples have been a fixture in the Munich neighbourhood of Glockenbach, where there are many queer bars and nightclubs, since 2019.
Braunschweig, Münster, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hanover and Marburg also jumped on the bandwagon after Munich.
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