The federal government wants to abolish the transsexual law. Trans people can then change their official gender entry with significantly less effort than before. A great success for activists. But there are also critical voices.
In the future, everyone in Germany should be able to determine their gender and first name themselves and change it in a simple procedure at the registry office. This is what the concept for a new self-determination law envisages. It is intended to replace the transsexual law, which many people find outdated and discriminatory.
If the new regulation is implemented as planned, it will no longer matter whether the person is transgender, non-binary or intergender when it comes to entering gender and first names. Reports on sexual identity or a medical certificate should no longer be required as a prerequisite for such a change.
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It’s a push that’s causing jubilation among trans activists. 18-year-old Emma Kohler, who has just graduated from high school, says in an interview with FOCUS Online: “I think it’s a big and important step, even if some details could be improved.”
Specifically, she means the rules for 14 to 18 year olds. Because young people from the age of 14 should be able to fill out the application for renaming themselves, but they need the consent of the legal guardian. “I don’t think they should need their parents’ go-ahead,” says Kohler.
The 18-year-old describes herself as “trans” and came out at the age of 15. In her ID, she still appears as a man. Because she couldn’t afford to change the entry so far, she says.
“The two psychological reports that you need for this cost just under 1700 euros – and I would have to pay for them myself, the health insurance company doesn’t cover it.” In addition, Kohler does not want to answer “degrading” questions. “As part of these assessments, trans people have to talk about their masturbation behavior, for example.”
Many trans people see it the same way as the 18-year-old. And not just them: Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) also described the process as “deeply humiliating” and “superfluous” when she and Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) announced the planned abolition of the transsexual law almost two weeks ago.
It is true that the project of the traffic light parties is only about changing the gender entry in ID documents, i.e. not about gender reassignment surgeries or hormone therapies. All the rules remain the same here, the two politicians explained at the press conference.
But there are critical voices who fear that the self-determination law will open the floodgates to more medical interventions. For example, the Munich child and adolescent psychiatrist Alexander Korte. In an interview with the “taz” he said: “The law comes and does not remain without consequences for medical treatment practice.”
Korte believes youth who have had their gender changed feel vindicated in living in the wrong body. And run the risk of seeing the transsexual path as the only option for themselves. The psychiatrist is not alone in his opinion.
29-year-old Sabeth Blank is also skeptical about the planned abolition of the transsexual law. “If the gender entry has already been changed, then I could imagine that medical changes to your own body are easier to do,” she says to FOCUS Online.
Blank knows very well what it’s like to struggle with one’s own sexual identity. She grew up in conservative Bavaria, had short hair as a child and liked to wear men’s clothes. “It was then that my fellow human beings started to discriminate against me. For many, it was abnormal for a woman to look like that.” At some point, it became so for Blank.
She left Bavaria, came to Berlin and met a trans man who felt the same as her. “I thought: Maybe I’m trans too?” Blank was 19 at the time. She found role models in a support group and began taking testosterone. At some point she also had her marital status adjusted in her identity card.
In the self-help group, the 29-year-old explains, mastectomies, i.e. breast amputations, were always an issue. “The time came when I wanted that too,” says Blank. She arranged preliminary talks with various doctors and was convinced that her decision was the right one. Blank underwent surgery on New Year’s Eve 2016 when she was 23 years old.
Blank speaks of all these things as if they happened yesterday. Maybe also because the events were so drastic. Especially the moment she woke up from the anesthetic. “I just thought to myself: You just made a big mistake.”
Blank developed pain in the left side of her body, but the people in the self-help group didn’t listen to her. She regretted the mastectomy more and more, but also the hormone therapy. Changing her own body like that felt wrong to her. So wrong that Blank eventually stopped taking testosterone. Today, her female name is on her ID card again.
It is unclear how many people withdraw from a gender reassignment surgery on average. Sven Lehmann, the federal government’s queer commissioner, cannot make a precise statement either. In a guest article for “Zeit Online”, he speaks of just under one percent, but only refers to reports from the “community”.
It is almost as difficult to quantify how many trans people actually live in Germany. However, it is clear that in 2020 almost 2700 people had their marital status changed and, according to the Federal Statistical Office, 2155 people underwent gender reassignment surgery.
But even if Blank as a “regretter” is just one of a few: She warns against careless changes to one’s own body. “I think women who don’t conform to the classic image of women can easily fall into the same trap as I do.” The “trap” means believing you’re in the wrong body, even though the real farce lies in the pressure to conform to society.
And Blank makes another important point: “An alleged transsexuality could also be based on other psychological problems.” However, according to the 29-year-old, she can only talk about transition motives of women, not of men. And make no statement about women for whom gender reassignment is proving to be the right path.
Adolescent psychiatrist Korte told the “taz” that in certain scenes it was “hip” to be trans. “First and foremost, this appeals to female adolescents who have an inner conflict related to sexuality or who suffer from social stereotypes or ideals of beauty – or those who are sexually traumatized.”
And in a statement that he prepared as an expert for the Bundestag, he wrote: “We know from catamnesis studies that the self-diagnosis “trans” later turns out to be a subjective misjudgment in quite a few children and adolescents over the course of their development.”
Statements for which Korte is now being criticized. Many trans people find his views hurtful. So does activist Kohler. For them it is presumptuous to suspect a kind of trend in “being trans”.
“It’s far from cool to be trans. There is constant discrimination and gender reassignment surgery is often extremely painful. Who would do something like that voluntarily?” she says. Kohler started a petition to abolish the transsexual law long before the traffic light plans. For more self-determination, as she explains.
In the end, the topic of transsexuality remains highly controversial, especially among young people. Does the change in civil status in the ID card really pave the way for more medical interventions and hormone therapies? Or does it finally offer trans people the chance to live out their identity? And when is a person sure of their sexual identity?
The German Ethics Council is also torn on these questions. In 2020, one member welcomed the “depathologization of trans identity” as social progress. In the case of children, however, the situation is very complex, “especially when it comes to medical interventions with side effects for the child or even irreversible consequences”.
Justice Minister Buschmann emphasized at the press conference two weeks ago that, to his knowledge, medical sex reassignments are only carried out from the age of 18 anyway. However, adolescent psychiatrists can prescribe puberty blockers much sooner in individual cases.
Sabeth Blank now lives in Cologne and is doing her master’s degree in electrical engineering. When she looks back on her very personal trans story, she has learned one thing: “You should always ask yourself: do I really want to be a man? Or just not a woman?”