In the event of war, German ‘transgender’ women will be drafted as men under a surprise provision of the new ‘Self-Determination Law,’ the newly published proposal revealed, writes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) on Friday, May 28th. Men who identify as women could also be barred from women’s saunas and put into men’s prisons.
As we wrote before, the German government has been working on a bill to simplify the legal recognition of transgender individuals, widely celebrated by the country’s LGBT lobby groups. The so-called ‘Self-determination Law’ will make it possible for adults who identify as transgender to change their legal sex in documents via a simple self-declaration—without the involvement of medical experts or the courts.
The law will also allow children of all ages to change their legal gender, even if the rules vary by age. For children under the age of 14, only the parents or legal guardians can initiate the procedure; for teens aged 14 or above, the self-declaration process is the same as for adults, as long as they have parental consent. However, if the parents object, then it would be up to the courts to decide.
But, as the final proposal was published last week, it contained several unpleasant surprises for the German transgender community. Certain provisions, for instance, specify what happens to trans women in the event of war; address the question of women’s only spas and women’s penitentiaries; reappraise what qualifies as gender quotas in German companies.
With regards to military service, the proposal specifically outlaws draft evasion by means of identifying with the female sex. According to the text, assignment to the male gender would remain in effect “if a request for change is made in direct temporal connection with the case of [military] tension and defense.” The length and extent of this “temporal connection” remains unspecified.
Another provision recognizes the right of spas and other sauna operators to bar trans women from using women’s-only facilities “in consideration of the natural need for the protection of privacy and also the fear of sexual harassment.”
So is the case for the penal system, another area where the previous proposals drew much criticism. Under the law, the question of whether trans women should go to men’s or women’s prison will be up to a judicial decision in each separate case, which will have to take into account “the security interests and personal rights of all prisoners.”
Furthermore, the change of gender of an employee will not have any effect on the status of a gender quota at a company. This means that the recorded share of women will not drop if one decides to become a man, nor will it rise (to meet the required standards) if male employees declare themselves women.
Among these provisions, the most debated is the one related to military service, even if it is only meant to prevent abusing the law to evade conscription. While quite pragmatic, it is somewhat surprising to see this provision, considering the negative press that erupted after Ukraine started to draft transgender men identifying as women, and the EU’s denouncing of the measure.
In a resolution adopted by the European Parliament in May 2022 (on the impact of the war on women), the MEPs recalled “the difficult situation of and obstacles to transgender persons including trans women … with the male gender marker in their passports, who are prevented from fleeing Ukraine,” and called on the EU “to ask Ukraine to simplify the procedures to allow [trans] women to flee Ukraine.”
While being presented to the European Parliament, the resolution was spearheaded by the social-democrat S&D group, whose members also include the German ruling party, SPD, responsible for adding the provision to the ‘Self-Determination Law’ which seemingly goes against the same principles.
