Gender change

German Bundestag approves transgender law

(Bild: AP)

After a sometimes highly emotional debate, the German Bundestag has given the green light for the government's new self-determination law. In a roll-call vote on Friday, a majority of the plenary voted in favor of the law, which will make it much easier than before to change information about one's gender with the authorities. With a total of 636 votes cast, 374 MPs voted in favor of the law.

There were 251 no votes and eleven abstentions. Opposition support for the law of the traffic light coalition came from the Die Linke group. The CDU/CSU, AfD and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) clearly rejected approval.

Making it easier to change gender
The new law is intended to make it easier to have your gender entry and first name changed at public offices. It stipulates that from November 1 of this year, people will be able to make the corresponding change by submitting a declaration to the registry office. The previous obligation to submit a medical certificate and several expert opinions is to be abolished.

+1

Fotos

The simplifications will primarily affect transgender, intersex and non-binary people, who previously had to overcome major hurdles to have their gender entry and first name changed at the registry office. They still have to go through a lengthy and costly procedure with expert opinions.

Old law to be replaced
The new Self-Determination Act replaces the German Transsexuals Act, which has been in force for 40 years. The Federal Constitutional Court had repeatedly declared parts of the law to be unconstitutional and pointed out the humiliating procedures for those affected.

The humiliation has now come to an end, explained the Federal Government's Queer Commissioner, Sven Lehmann, in the Bundestag on Friday. The Transsexuals Act had caused enough suffering. Green MP Nyke Slawik, who herself belongs to the group of trans people and had her gender entry changed on the basis of the previous rules, thanked everyone who had made the new law possible. "As trans people, we experience time and again that our dignity is made a matter of negotiation," she explained. This is now a thing of the past. Sharp criticism came from the opposition.

Conservatives rail against it
CDU MP Mareike Wulf (CDU) accused the governing coalition of allowing any citizen to have their gender entry changed at the office in future without giving any further justification. The AfD found some drastic words. "Everyone should suddenly be able to be anything," cried MP Martin Reichardt. He spoke of "ideological nonsense" and "trans extremists". It was a "ludicrous law" that his parliamentary group rejected in its entirety.

In Europe and worldwide, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the possibility of a purely legal gender change by self-determined decision already exists in several countries, including Denmark, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Norway, Malta, Ireland, Portugal and Iceland. In South American countries such as Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, people can also have their gender entry changed without having to undergo gender reassignment surgery. This is also possible in Pakistan.