Muenster - Guide for Gays, Lesbians and Queers

Münster has no big gay strip, but it does have a close network of associations, cultural venues and party series. Anyone who wants to get to know the city's queer side will find the key addresses spread between the harbour, the Hawerkamp area and Warendorfer Straße. A classic gay bar that opens every night has been hard to find in Münster for years, which makes the places where the community meets regularly all the more important.

The central point of contact is KCM at Am Hawerkamp 31. This association for queer life has been part of Münster since the 1980s and today offers psychosocial counselling, trans peer counselling, and groups for queer men, trans and inter people and parents. It also hosts social evenings such as a joint ESC viewing or a Tanz in den Mai dance.

For FLINTA* people, LiVas at Schaumburgstraße 11 is the main address, with counselling, culture and meet-ups such as a queer games night. The Cinema arthouse cinema at Warendorfer Straße 45–47 shows at least one queer film every month, and in November the Queerstreifen, Münster's lesbian, gay and queer film days, screen films from around the world over several days. Café Garbo in the same building is a relaxed place to spend time before or after a film.

For nights out, the main event is Temptation at Puls Club, Hafenstraße 64, a queer party series for LGBTIQA+ people and friends, with occasional FLINTA*-only editions. Gay men looking to unwind will find a men-only sauna at Saunabad Die Insel, Geringhoffstraße 46–48, with several saunas and its own swimming pool.

History is present in Münster too: in the 1970s, homosexual men and women marched through the city centre here in the first demonstration of its kind in West Germany. Today the city's Christopher Street Day recalls this every year, usually in August.