Until a few years ago, there were very few historical sources on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people preserved in the Mainz City Archives.

Therefore, in 2022, in cooperation with the city’s Coordination Office for LGBTIQ Equality, a call for research on LGBTIQ history in Mainz was launched. The goal is to collect documents from Mainz residents whose lifestyles, sexual orientations, and gender identities did not conform to social norms, and who were therefore despised, discriminated against, or even prosecuted. By establishing a collection on the LGBTIQ history of Mainz, documents on the queer history of the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital are being systematically cataloged for the first time and made available for research.

We will present these new sources on Mainz’s LGBTIQ history to all history enthusiasts on Thursday, May 28, 2026, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Mainz City Archives.