HOSI Wien

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HOSI Wien is Vienna’s oldest and largest LGBT group. It was founded in 1979 as the Homosexual Initiative Vienna and is a member-based organization with regular elections. It runs subgroups such as a youth group and a women’s group and organises Vienna Pride and the Rainbow Parade every year. HOSI stands for Homosexuelle Initiative, and the name is used by other Austrian groups (HOSI Linz, HOSI Salzburg, HOSI Tirol) and sometimes to refer to all of them together.

HOSI Wien has worked to secure LGBT rights in Austria. In the 1980s and 1990s it was active in the HIV/AIDS movement and runs Names Project Wien, a memorial quilt project started in 1992. The group has published the magazine LAMBDA-Nachrichten since 1979, the oldest German-language gay and lesbian magazine.

The organization runs a community centre in the Naschmarkt area called Glugg, which serves as its office, archive, and storage space. It has meeting rooms, a stage, and a theatre group called The HOSIsters. In 1982 HOSI Wien organized Vienna’s first gay rights half-day festival and unofficial march (about 100 people). The first Pride parade followed in 1984 with around 300 participants on Kärntner Straße. In 1989 it organized a gay marriage parade with unofficial weddings.

After CSD Wien went bankrupt in 2003, HOSI Wien took over the Rainbow Parade. It helped host Europride in Vienna in 2001 (8th edition) and 2019 (26th edition).