Klaus Wowereit made his homosexuality public 20 years ago when he wanted to become the governing mayor of Berlin. That earned him a lot of respect – but there were also unpleasant experiences.
Berlin (dpa) – Anti-gay experiences were not uncommon for Klaus Wowereit in his time as Governing Mayor of Berlin.
“Whenever there was a controversial decision, then I also received a large number of homophobic comments and letters, and emails,” said the 67-year-old on Wednesday at a panel discussion in Berlin’s Willy Brandt House, which was broadcast via live stream. “I then regularly filed a criminal complaint.”
Such insults would not have hit him personally. “But I also did it on behalf of others.” However, his experience was that most of the time there was no prosecution. “Unfortunately, no one could be identified. But still I did it again and again. “
From Wowereit’s point of view, whether someone is homosexual or not still makes a difference 20 years after his famous sentence “I’m gay – and that’s a good thing”. “We know areas of society where this is still absolutely taboo or a career killer, whether it is men’s football or whether it is the bankers or the CEOs in large companies,” said the social democrat, who was the governing mayor from 2001 to 2014 was. “We’ll have to look for a long time before we find someone out there. That is still a social issue. “
For Wowereit, being gay wasn’t the main reason for his decision to go into politics. “Maybe subconsciously, you can never rule that out,” he said. “But social justice was more of an issue for me, because I come from a working-class family and was the first to go to high school and study. For me that was more of the leitmotif. ”He was not a champion for equality for homosexuals.
But his striking sentence made history. Wowereit had said it at a special party congress on June 10, 2001 – before his nomination as an SPD candidate for the office of governing mayor. There was frenetic applause from the Social Democrats and he was elected unanimously. The lawyer and SPD parliamentary group leader became known about it overnight. For the first time, a top politician in Germany dared to make his homosexuality public.
In the opinion of many political watchers, Wowereit has paved the way for political equality for gays and lesbians. In any case, the quote went viral – long before social media existed – and has been heard and read thousands of times since then. Already at Christopher Street Day (CSD) at the end of June 2001, numerous t-shirts could be seen: “I’m gay – and that’s a good thing”, optionally also the variant “I’m a lesbian – and that’s even better”.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210609-99-926571 / 5
