CSD in Münster: Attack on trans man

An unknown attacked a trans man in Münster. The federal government’s queer commissioner calls for the case to be clarified quickly.

“…an attack like this shows that we must continue to take to the streets for LGBTQIA+ rights” Photo: Stefan Boness

BERLIN taz | Actually, it should have been a big colorful festival: the Christopher Street Day (CSD) on Saturday in Münster. But the event was overshadowed by a life-threatening attack on transman Malte C. On Monday he was still in the hospital, but was out of danger, according to reports from the WDR was called. The Münster police confirmed the case on Monday and are now investigating. According to the police report, other participants were also verbally attacked by the alleged perpetrator.

“Sometimes it is said that the community has long had equal rights. An attack like this shows that we must continue to take to the streets for LGBTQIA+ rights,” said Jan Baumann from the Queer community in Munster the taz As every year, the closing service of the Pride Weeks was held in the Heilig-Geist-Kirche on Sunday evening after the CSD. This time it was also a church service for Malte C. The actual parade on Saturday in Münster was more successful than expected. The organizers had registered around 3,000 participants, according to the police, there were sometimes 10,000 people at the demonstration.

The parade went through downtown to the port. Here, an as yet unknown perpetrator is said to have hit Malte C. The perpetrator had previously insulted other participants in a homophobic manner. C. asked him to stop. Whereupon the perpetrator struck at least twice. C. came to the hospital with cerebral hemorrhage, it says queer.de. Even if his life is no longer in danger, he is “probably severely damaged,” writes the Trans-Inter-Münster association on Facebook. Malte C. was active in the association’s self-help group TransIdent Münster.

The federal government’s queer commissioner, Sven Lehmann, told the taz that he was appalled by the news of the terrible attack: “There must be a quick clarification of this transphobic act and the criminal prosecution of the perpetrators. We are observing the increasing anti-trans hate speech with great concern.” Lehmann also demands from the federal states that their police should react sensitively to anti-queer crimes in order to increase the willingness of the victims to report them.

High number of unreported attacks

Kalle Hümpfner, specialist for socio-political work at the Federal Association Trans *, told the taz that the association was shocked, but unfortunately not surprised. “More cases are reported to the police every year.” But it must be assumed that the number of unreported cases is larger, because “many trans* people do not report transphobic violence because they fear that the police will not take them seriously.”

The Lesbian and Gay Association published numbers of the Federal Ministry of the Interior on crimes in the field of “gender/sexual identity”, including transphobic acts. In 2021, 340 cases, 57 of which were violent crimes, were assigned. In the previous year there were 204 crimes. Within a year, the number has increased by almost 140 cases. The figures come from a written question by Ulle Schauws (Greens), member of the Bundestag.

Sven Lehmann supplemented the federal government’s measures against discrimination and hate crime: “In the future, security authorities should record hate crimes based on gender and against queer people separately in order to develop suitable measures for the protection of LGBTIQ* on the basis of the statistical key figures.”

Since January 1, 2020, there has been a gender/sexual identity subtopic in hate crime statistics. Attacks against women and trans* and inter* people are not yet recorded separately.