PHOTOS: Berlin's Christopher Street Day Celebration

Christopher Street Day is held in Berlin every June. Lesbians, gay men, transgender people, intersex and bisexual people demonstrate here for equal rights and protest against all forms of discrimination in society. But it is also a joyful occasion, as participants celebrate the rights they have won over the last few decades.

CSD Berlin is a huge party on the streets of Berlin, and at the same time it is becoming increasingly political. For example, people protest for equal marriage rights. Every year, there is a special motto that sums up the main CSD demands. This year's motto is "LGBTI* rights are human rights." About half a million people, including supportive straights, demonstrate for the rights of LGBTI people.

People on a Statue of Liberty-themed float participate in the annual Christopher Street Day parade on Kurfuerstendamm Avenue Saturday in Berlin. This year the gay and lesbian pride fest was divided into three parades due to differences over the event's political goals.

Horned up and ready for CSD Berlin.

Feathers, Crocs, and mock Chanel are all appropriate.

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Members of the Seattle Men's Chrous of the USA participate in the annual Christopher Street Day parade on Kurfuerstendamm Avenue.

Flouncy pride.

Participants wear hats featuring Russian church domes and hold a banner displaying a portrait of Russian president Vladimir Putin reading, "I'm under cover! And I love it!" during the Christopher Street Day gay pride parade in front of Berlin's Memorial Church.

A drag queen wears a costume with its own makeup table

Nude men pose in front of Berlin's Memorial Church.

Austrian singer and Eurovision Song Contest 2014 winner Conchita Wurst poses as he arrives for the Stonewall gala at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.

Conchita Wurst performs during the Stonewall gala at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.

Drag queens wait next to a bust of Austrian-born theater director Max Reinhardt outside the Deutsches Theater building in Berlin prior to the Stonewall gala.

Prior to the annual Christopher Street Day parade, gay German police officers in uniform lay a wreath at the memorial to LGBT people murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis.

German family minister Manuela Schwesig speaks at a Saturday ceremony in Berlin at the memorial to LGBT people murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis.