German feminist opposes liberalisation transgender law

The recently appointed Traffic Light coalition wants to make it easier to change gender. Their coalition agreement says that they want to get rid of the current Transsexual Act. This 1980 law allows people to be legally determined in the gender role that suits their perceived gender identity. It requires, however, the interference of a court. A judge has to decide whether the applicant can indeed enter the transformation process. Currently, no draft law has been submitted by the federal government.

One of the persons who campaigned in the public debate for this law was Germany’s best-known feminist, Alice Schwarzer. But what was considered an achievement at the time is now regarded as undignified and humiliating by many 40 years later. Meanwhile, Schwarzer is critical of these comments.

Fashion

Schwarzer published a polemic pamphlet entitled ‘Transsexuality – What is a woman? What is a man?’. The book is intended to trigger a broad public debate, which Schwarzer believes does not currently exist. “It’s not about the extremely small group of true trans people,” she insists. “It’s about tens of thousands of young girls who suddenly want to change their sex. Especially very young girls. There are now classes in which four girls sit and say: ‘I’m trans - I want to be a boy!’ It’s becoming a mass phenomenon.” According to the German magazine Focus, Schwarzer speaks of a real “trans fashion”.

The 79-year-old feminist further writes that it is a mistake to fundamentally deny the existence of a biological sex. According to her, it is a problematic development that transsexuality is no longer seen “as a serious mental conflict for a few” but “increasingly simply as a way to simply look for the ‘right’ body for the supposedly ‘wrong’ gender role”.

Mutilation

The Christian German news agency Idea reports that the number of young transsexuals with medical records has increased by around 4,000 per cent in the Western world within a few years.

Schwarzer is particularly outraged that gender change should, in future, be possible from the age of 14 without consent from parents or guardians. “This step is often followed by lifelong hormone therapy and serious surgical interventions. Healthy bodies are thus mutilated and made ill for life.”

The feminist also writes that the danger has been recognised in Sweden and Great Britain. Planned “self-determination laws” there were stopped after therapists, doctors and feminists protested against them.