After Spain, which a few months ago approved the horrifying Ley Trans, an initiative that contributed to the Podemos debacle in the recent local elections and that is jeopardising the centre-left government - next 23 July there will be a vote for politics - it would have been Germany's turn to approve a law on total gender self-determination (self-id). But things turned out differently, as you can read here.
The law to approve the self-id in Germany was blocked at the last minute for fear that it will be instrumentalised by convicts who want to escape punishment.
The German 'transsexual law' (transsexual lax) would be replaced by a 'self-determination law' that would have made sex change a simple civil procedure, removing the requirement for any medical assessment, similar to what happens in Scotland. The current law, however, currently requires trans people to have their sex change recognised by a court and present two witnesses.
The law was to be approved by the Council of Ministers by the end of the month and voted on by the Bundestag in the autumn after months of clashes between the Justice, Family and Interior Ministrieseach of which belong to separate parties within the fragmented centre-left coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The three ministers met late Thursday evening for an emergency summit, but reportedly no concrete solution was found and the draft of the progressive 'self-determination law' was removed from the cabinet agenda.
The Ministry of the Interior, led by the German Social Democratic Party, and the law enforcement agencies feared the risk that the law may be used to circumvent legal proceedings.
"Crucial information such as criminal records, outstanding arrest warrants and gun licences must be recognisable to prosecutors in databases after changing name and gender," he told Der Spiegel the president of the Alliance of German Legal Officers Dirk Peglow.
The draft law provided for a ban on the police and other institutions using the person's name before the transition. But Nancy Faeser, Interior Minister of Scholz's Social Democrats, would have insisted that both names must automatically be given to the police authorities for prevent criminals from abusing the - particularly fast - sex change procedure.
It is also feared that the law could be used by previously rejected asylum seekers, allowing them to change their name and gender to avoid repatriation.
Also thehe German association of sauna operators expressed concern for the new law, forcing the government to ensure that saunas can apply their own entry policies.
Ferda Ataman, the anti-discrimination commissioner, accused the government of bowing to right-wing populism with this postponement after putting the brakes on reform.
"It is said that we have to worry about the fact that men and women are no longer clearly defined and that men change their sex just to enter a sauna and look at women". But, he pointed out, 'in Germany we still have mostly mixed-sex saunas. No man has to legally change his sex to see a naked woman'.
The law in favour of self-id was seen as an opportunity for the three allies to demonstrate their common liberal ideas - and their unity - and was one of the first laws introduced by the unlikely allies when they formed their own tripartite coalition after decades, the first in post-war Germany.
A similar law had been proposed during the SPD-Green government of Gerhard Schröder in the early 2000s, but had been postponed repeatedly. Schröder then left office
Original article here (translation by Angela Tacchini)
