queerKAstle is Karlsruhe's queer centre, in the Weststadt near the Günther-Klotz-Anlage. It opened in October 2024 after two and a half years of campaigning by the association behind it, and it is run by volunteers on the counter and in the education team.
There are four rooms, each named after a figure from queer history. The main one holds a drinks counter, sofas, a shelf of board games, a children's and family corner and a rack of flyers from the city's queer groups. A second takes up to twenty people for workshops and counselling, a third is the office, and the quiet room houses RoBIn, a queer library of more than a thousand items, with sofas, stimming toys and windows that can be darkened completely.
Counselling, education work, self-help groups and events all run out of the building, from a queer art market to drag nights, and a community garden bed belongs to it as well. The counter serves soft drinks only, and the house is smoke free and drug free throughout.
For a visitor this is the place to find out what else is happening in the city, since most of Karlsruhe's queer groups pass through it.
The people in this picture are AI-generated.
