Bad Oeynhausen - Guide for Gays, Lesbians and Queers

Bad Oeynhausen has no queer bars, cafés or saunas. The town in the Werre valley is known mainly as a spa resort with a historic spa park and specialist clinics, among them the Heart and Diabetes Centre of North Rhine-Westphalia. There was, however, a small queer meeting point: the Protestant Emmaus parish, together with Queerpoint Minden, set up Queerpoint Bad Oeynhausen in the Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Haus on Bismarckstraße. It was meant as a place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer people as well as their families and friends, with a monthly café meet-up.

Queerpoint Minden itself is a non-profit counselling and drop-in centre that met in the tower room of the BÜZ cultural centre on Johanniskirchhof in Minden. Its services included peer counselling on gender identity, open meetings and a self-help group, explicitly open to people from the surrounding area. When the centre cannot be reached, it refers trans-related questions to the self-help group Transident Bielefeld und OWL.

The most reliable services in the region are in Bielefeld. Aidshilfe Bielefeld runs Queer*Connect, a psychosocial counselling service for LGBTIQ people and their relatives. Other projects include Youthwork for young people, anti-discrimination counselling, support for queer refugees and Herzenslust for men who have sex with men, which also offers counselling and testing by appointment. The association BIEQueer e.V. organises Bielefeld Pride and a round table for LGBTIQ groups, where initiatives from the region can meet and network.

If you live in Bad Oeynhausen and are looking for community, you will mostly find it in Minden and above all in Bielefeld. The counselling services there are a good first contact for questions about coming out, family or discrimination, and they can point you to groups nearby.