Gay Museum

The Gay Museum is already very popular among young people. This is evident both in the strong response on social media and in the already high number of young visitors. Despite this clear interest, collaboration with young people had not yet been structurally integrated into the museum. Participation in the Jugendkulturinitiative the opportunity to systematically expand youth participation and establish it within the museum on a long-term basis. At the same time, this created an opportunity to intensify citywide, decentralized networking with partners in queer youth work and to create new cooperative structures.

The Gay Museum continued to pursue two main lines of action: First, the museum itself developed workshops and special guided tours for youth groups—in close cooperation with queer youth organizations and other partners. Second, complementary decentralized programs were created directly at the partner organizations’ facilities to strengthen queer cultural spaces there, particularly in neighborhoods where young people have been increasingly exposed to anti-queer sentiment in recent years.

At the same time, the museum expanded its internal opportunities for participation. A key component of this effort was the establishment of a youth advisory board, which was intended to help shape the collection and programming from a youth and queer perspective in the future. This process strengthened the long-term involvement of young people and embedded their perspectives in curatorial and strategic decisions.

Throughout the project, the approach to engaging young people was continuously refined and adapted to their needs based on their feedback. The team, which was still in the process of being established, was tasked with working alongside the facility management to develop new participatory structures and empowerment programs.

In addition, additional external funding was secured, which made it possible to sustain the youth programs and provided long-term support for embedding this area of work within the organization. Another key developmental step was the creation of a Code of Conduct and a youth protection policy, which was to be developed in collaboration with queer partner organizations. This strengthened the foundation for safe and empowering spaces for queer youth at the museum and within the context of our partnerships.