How useful is the proposed law by the German traffic light government, which is intended to allow fourteen-year-olds to have their names and gender officially re-registered?
Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) (1st and 2nd from left) in Berlin.
Recently, the German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) and the Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) presented the «vertices» for the Self-Determination Act. “A procedure is planned at the registry office that makes it possible to change the gender entry in civil status by self-disclosure”. This should be possible from the age of fourteen. In addition, “an extended and sanction-reinforced ban on disclosure and a strengthening of the information and counseling services” should apply, whereby the costs of “sex reassignment treatments” would have to be borne in full by the health insurance company.
But why should a mere self-disclosure about one’s “perceived” gender be enough to change the gender entry? And why should health insurance companies (as Buschmann insists) only pay for cosmetic surgeries? Allegedly, the previous hurdles, in particular the obligation to obtain an expert opinion, are “inhuman and degrading”. That Federal Constitutional Court however, explained in 2017 why this is not the case.
The Minister of Justice, on the other hand, says twice in a row: “Freedom also means the freedom to be yourself.” Right. However, a man who feels like a woman already has the freedom to be who he is, namely a man who feels like a woman. He even has the legal freedom to become what he is not, such as a woman. No law forbids him; it’s just factually impossible, and the “Self-Determination Act” can’t change that.
Buschmann also explains that people whose “gender identity” differs from their biological sex must be treated with respect by the state. He is right. However, he is mistaken if he thinks such truisms could support the bill. He himself emphasizes that the law refers “exclusively to changing the first name and the gender entry”. However, various identity documents note gender, date and place of birth, not related “identities” or feelings. And the citizen has as little right to have the state tell untruths about his gender in documents as he has to lie about his date or place of birth, whether the citizen is in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the wrong body born or not.
No need for discussion?
Conversely, however, citizens have the right not to be determined by others to confirm other people’s self-image contrary to reality, under threat of a fine. But this is what the so-called disclosure ban provides for, as Queer Commissioner Sven Lehmann admits more openly than the ministers. Anyone who does not address a man who is officially listed as a “woman” on the basis of a legal fiction as such will in future be asked to pay. Greetings from Party henchman O’Brien, who in Orwell’s “1984” forced the hero Winston to “admit” that two plus two equals five.
The Self-Determination Act is illiberal in its attack not only on freedom of speech and conscience, but also on women’s rights. When asked about this, Paus sees “no further need for discussion”, but explains apodictically: “Trans women are women.” A minister should be expected to have a command of the official language. The Duden definitions of “woman” and “female” show that “trans women” are not women, and international experience and crime statistics show – contrary to Paus’ protestations – that changes in the gender entry by mere self-declaration greatly increase the security of women probably undermined by facilitating men’s access to shelters that are actually reserved for women.
International experience and crime statistics show – contrary to Paus’ protestations – that changes in gender registration through mere self-declaration undermine women’s security.
deception
The ministers also wash their hands of the much-criticized health risk to minors, since it is “only about the gender entry”. They delegate responsibility to medical societies. This is a ruse, because the law does not operate in a vacuum, but will very well result in harm to children due to the trans media hype and further projects of the coalition.
It is only the public service broadcaster who persuades them that their gender-atypical behavior is possibly an expression of “being born in the wrong body”, for which there is the supposedly child’s play of “transition”, which you can officially “self-determine” from the age of fourteen should be able to start. Then, through the “Act to protect against conversion treatments”, the therapeutically required critical questioning of “transidentification” is made a punishable offence. And finally, as provided for in the coalition agreement, the exemption from punishment for parents will be abolished if they refuse uncritical affirmation and transition.
This is not “self-determination”, but an ideologically motivated disenfranchisement of parents at the expense of the children. Studies have shown how high these costs are. The two ministers have “seen” their data, but they prefer to stick to the ideology rather than the facts.
Uwe Steinhoff is Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. Most recently, he published the book “On the Ethics of War and Terrorism”.