Hygiene Concept

When using the Queer Center, it is very important to us to take precautions to prevent infection. We take measures ourselves to ensure hygiene in the rooms, but we also have a few requests for you as users/guests. You can find a rough overview here. For individual events, other precautions may be specified in advance and be stated in the respective invitations.

Symptoms of acute illness

If you have symptoms of contagious diseases (e.g., COVID-19, flu) that are common in crowded places, we ask you to stay at home.

Join us online

We sometimes meet in person at the Queer Center, sometimes entirely online, and sometimes in a hybrid format. The Queer Center has a 360° camera with a microphone so that group meetings and plenary sessions can comfortably be held in a hybrid format. If you would like to join us online, please get in touch.

Wash/disinfect your hands

We kindly ask you to wash/disinfect your hands regularly. For example, if you have traveled by public transport, it would be great if you could wash your hands at the center as soon as you arrive. You should also wash your hands before events where everyone touches the same materials/objects (e.g., pens, books, etc.). We make sure that soap and disinfectant are always available on site—and hand cream too, so that our skin doesn't dry out completely :)  

We also regularly disinfect frequently touched items such as door handles, light switches, and faucets. There is disinfectant for toilet seats in the restrooms—please use it.

COVID-19 tests

We generally ask you to take a COVID-19 test before coming to the center. If you don't have one yourself, or if you simply forgot or didn't have time to take one, we have tests in stock so you can take one on site.

Masks

For some events, we specify in advance that FFP2 masks are mandatory. We also have these in stock if you don't have your own. The invitation will always state whether masks are mandatory for an event.  If no mask requirement has been specified in advance, we will still discuss at the beginning of the event whether it is okay for everyone not to wear masks. You are, of course, welcome to wear masks at any time without being asked.

Ventilation

The rooms should be ventilated regularly.

For us, preventing infection also has a political dimension.

On a very basic level, a good hygiene policy often deters people who deliberately behave recklessly out of political conviction—for example, Querdenker*innen.

For us as queer people, preventing infection is also an important issue when we think back on our history: We lost almost an entire generation of queer people to the AIDS crisis, and the widespread prevalence of HIV in queer communities led to a great deal of stigmatization, exclusion, and a lack of medical care. When it comes to infectious diseases, we are always reminded of what happened in the past to our movements—and it is important to keep that in mind.  

Another political dimension of infection control is the accessibility of our services. There are many people for whom infections can be very dangerous for various reasons (pre-existing conditions, immunosuppression, age, etc.) – even if it is “just” a cold. By adhering to the hygiene concept, we hope to make the center as low-risk as possible.