Admin I Wednesday, August 23, 2023
BERLIN – Germany’s Cabinet is set to find an agreement on a draft law on Wednesday that would make it easier for people to legally change their name and gender.
The so-called Self-Determination Act would allow for those changes at government registry offices in a simple procedure. At the moment, changing one’s gender requires expert assessments and a court decision.
The law is aimed at transgender, intersex and non-binary people, the Family and Justice Ministries said. It has been criticized by conservative parties and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Many trans people find the current transsexual law humiliating, as it stipulates that people may only officially change their first name and gender after a psychological assessment and a court decision. They often have to put up with very intimate questions.
According to the draft law, the definition of a trans person is someone who does not identify or does not identify only with the gender they were assigned at birth.
People who are intersex have congenital physical characteristics “that cannot be clearly classified as (only) male or (only) female according to medical standards,” it said.
The term non-binary is defined as a self-designation for people who do not identify as either male or female, the draft law states.
The Cabinet also plans to decide on Wednesday on a bill by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to lower barriers for obtaining German citizenship.
In principle, immigrants should be able to obtain a German passport more quickly, though there are conditions on economic and democratic integration.
The draft, which dpa has obtained, explicitly excludes naturalization for people who have committed crimes for anti-Semitic or racist reasons.
