Prize winner Manuela Kay: Pioneering work for queer visibility in Berlin!

Prize winner Manuela Kay: Pioneering work for queer visibility in Berlin!

On October 20, 2025, the renowned journalist and activist Manuela Kay was awarded an award recognizing her outstanding commitment to lesbian visibility and intersectional justice in Germany. The award ceremony took place in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district, a center for queer culture and history in Berlin that actively contributes to promoting queer life. District mayor Jörn Oltmann said that strengthening queer diversity is essential for democracy. Since Kay was unable to attend for personal reasons, a representative accepted the award, but Oltmann announced that he would hand the award directly to Kay at a later date. This marks the beginning of a new tradition to honor commitment in the district, as berlin.de reports.

Manuela Kay is a pioneer in Germany's queer media landscape. She has been campaigning for lesbian visibility as a journalist, publisher, filmmaker and curator for almost 40 years. Kay became known as one of the first journalists in Germany to deal professionally with queer topics. She founded the magazine L-Mag in 2003 to represent the interests of lesbians outside Berlin, which was created as an extension of the already established magazine Siegessaule, of which she was editor-in-chief for almost a decade. This magazine was developed by Kay as a platform for broader inclusion within the LGBT community. The Dyke March in Berlin, which was launched in 2013, is also an initiative that contributes to the visibility of lesbians and now attracts over 10,000 participants, inspired by similar movements in the USA and Canada bowiecreators.com.

Queer history in Tempelhof-Schöneberg

The Tempelhof-Schöneberg district plays a historical role in Berlin's queer history. The memories of the diverse nightlife and homosexual organizations of the Weimar Republic are alive here. One of the pioneering figures was Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneer for gay rights whose work shaped the district. The Eldorado Bar from the 1920s is also an important symbol of this period. The district now has more queer projects and initiatives than any other in Berlin, and fixed packages of measures have been established in the budget to structurally support this diversity, as Oltmann emphasizes. Political work includes a dedicated queer committee and round table, which aim to further strengthen and promote the queer community.

The visibility and recognition of sexual diversity has increased in Germany over the last two decades. Nevertheless, queer aspects are often inadequately treated in historiography. The most recent historical commemoration initiatives, such as those of the German Bundestag, which for the first time on January 27, 2023 placed people persecuted because of their sexual orientation at the center of commemoration, are steps in the right direction. But the challenges remain. Queer history, which deals with same-sex desire and gender-nonconforming people, still points to unresolved questions of social acceptance, according to an article by the Federal Agency for Civic Education bpb.de.