[4] Although same-sex sexual activity between men was already made illegal under Paragraph 175 by the German Empire in 1871, Nazi Germany extended these laws during World War II, which resulted in the persecution and deaths of thousands of homosexual citizens.

[15] Former Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit is one of the most famous openly gay men in Germany,[16] next to the former Mayor of Hamburg, Ole von Beust, the former Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn,[17] the deceased former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor, Guido Westerwelle,[18] the former Federal Ministry of the Environment, Barbara Hendricks,[19] comedians Hape Kerkeling,[20] and Hella von Sinnen,[21] or political journalist Anne Will.

[25] In the five years following the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, the GDR Government instituted a program of "moral reform" to build a solid foundation for the new socialist republic in which masculinity and the traditional family were championed, while homosexuality, seen to contravene "healthy mores of the working people", continued to be prosecuted under Paragraph 175.

Same sex activity was "alternatively viewed as a remnant of bourgeois decadence, a sign of moral weakness, and a threat to the social and political health of the nation".

[25][27] According to historian Heidi Minning, attempts by lesbian and gay activists to establish a visible community were "thwarted at every turn by the GDR Government and the SED party".

In a 1994 interview, conducted and published by researcher Kurt Strake, Stapel emphasized the importance of these meetings as one of the first gathering spaces for the gay community in East Germany.

Primarily instigated by the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office, these trials were propelled forward with the aid of sex worker Otto Blankenstein, who served as a pivotal witness.

[39] Amidst prevailing socially conservative sentiments, the German Christian Democratic Union, wielding considerable political influence in post-war West Germany, generally disregarded or actively opposed gay rights issues.

At the national level, advancements in gay rights did not begin to happen until the end of the Cold War and the electoral success of the Social Democratic Party.

That year, registered life partnerships (eingetragene Lebenspartnerschaft) were instituted, giving same-sex couples rights and obligations in areas such as inheritance, alimony, health insurance, immigration, hospital, jail visitations, and name change.

[65] There is no legal right to assisted reproduction procedures for lesbian couples, such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation, but such practices are not explicitly banned either.

[66][67][68] In October 2018, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) in Karlsruhe ruled that, unlike heterosexual couples, the wife of the child's legal mother does not automatically become a parent, and that an adoption is necessary.

While the German Government declined to issue an official explanation for the reversal, it was widely believed that Scharping was overruled by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and former Vice-Chancellor Joschka Fischer.

[83] The Bundestag finally passed the General Act on Equal Treatment (German: Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz) on 29 June 2006; the Bundesrat voted on it without discussion on 7 July 2006.

In June 2018, the states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia submitted a draft bill to the Bundesrat to amend article 3 of the Basic Law to add the characteristics "sexual and gender identity".

[91][92] In May 2019, Alliance 90/The Greens, the Free Democratic Party and The Left proposed a joint legislative initiative to amend Article 3 of the Basic Law to ban discrimination on grounds of "sexual identity" (sexuelle Identität).

It was criticized by LGBT groups for failing to adopt a self-determination model and still requiring transgender people to go to court before a legal gender change.

[98] Since 2013, German law has allowed children born with atypical sexual anatomy to have their gender left blank instead of being categorised as male (männlich) or female (weiblich).

In February 2019, openly gay Health Minister Jens Spahn stated that he wanted conversion therapy for both minors and adults to be made illegal, calling it "a form of assault".

[113][114][115] In April 2019, after an online petition on the issue started by international LGBT organisation All Out collected around 110,000 signatures, Spahn called for a commission to draft proposals on how exactly such a ban can be introduced.

Likewise, the Ministry of Health invited politicians, scientists and those affected, as well as institutions from abroad who have already gained experience with legal prohibitions, to participate in the exchange.

[116] In early November 2019, Spahn submitted a draft bill that would ban the use of conversion therapy on minors and punish those coercing, deceiving and threatening someone of any age into the practice.

[125] Another bill to ban conversion therapy for minors and a motion with numerous measures to educate and support victims of such practices was presented by the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag in March 2019.

[133] In June 2021, Reuters reported that Germany plans to implement an "individual risk based assessment" (similar format to the UK, Italy and Spain) blood donations that replaces the current one-year deferral period policy since 2017.

Among them are In addition, former Hamburg Mayor Ole von Beust (CDU) did not deny anything when his father outed him but considered it a private matter; after leaving office he began talking about his homosexuality.

In January 2022, the office of Commissioner for the Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity in the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth was created.

With the rise to power of the Nazi Party, officials closed the bars, censored and banned gay publications and forced all organisations of the movement do dissolve themselves.

It was not until the liberalization of the social and political climate in the second half of the 1960s that homophile organizations made a modest new start, but they were soon marginalized by the rise of the modern gay and lesbian movements.

In 1975, several members of HAW split from the group to form their own organisation, the Lesbisches Aktionszentrum Westberlin (Lesbian Action Center West Berlin).

Events are also held in Bonn, Leipzig, Karlsruhe, Hanover, Nuremberg, Darmstadt, Bielefeld, Düsseldorf, Essen, Duisburg, Heidelberg, Wuppertal, Mannheim, Saarbrücken and Lübeck, among many others.