Hello Queer Pride!
We are very happy to be here on the FLINTA truck today. We are a group of FLINTA that regularly organize events for the queer community in Dresden as Queer Monday. As a disclaimer we would like to say that unfortunately we cannot cover all of our topics this time.
I would have liked to have found a nicer start to this speech, but honestly I have to tell you that I’m scared. As I, as we, have to watch in recent years how the worldwide shift to the right is progressing and how patriarchal hegemony is spreading in its hatred of minorities. When LGBTQIA rights are being cut back or even abolished from country to country, when despots spread their hatred, when more and more right-wing votes are being held in this country and CSDs are only possible with police protection, then this is frightening. I know that I am not alone in my fear, but that unfortunately many of my friends feel the same way. And fear can make you powerless. There were phases in my life when fear paralyzed me. But today I say, don’t let this fear rule over us. Let fear become action.
The Selbstbestimmungsgesetz/Self-Determination Act finally came into force at the end of last year and it has been a long road. The inhumane Transsexuellengesetz/Transsexual Act and also Paragraph 45b Personenstandsgesetz/ of the Civil Status Act are thus history. I myself have taken a different path, but I know how many have been eagerly awaiting the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz/Self-Determination Act. And even with this law, there is a three-month waiting period until the change of gender entry is valid. But although it was only recently passed, the Self-Determination Act is to be evaluated as early as 2026. On the grounds that the effects on the saftey of women and children had to be evaluated.
The Abstammungsrecht/ right of parentage is no longer an issue in the current coalition agreement, and trans parenthood is not definitively regulated in the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz/ Self-Determination Act, which means that trans parents may continue to be forcibly outed at the birth of their child and that there will still be a false name and gender on the birth certificate or that they will not be registered as parents at all. So much for the prohibition of disclosure and the full recognition of our identity. The non-reform of the Parentage Act also means that lesbian women cannot continue to be equal mothers and parents, but must take the humiliating path of stepchild adoption.
We will critically observe the current initiative by the Bundesrat to that matter. What the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz Self-Determination Act also does not regulate is the medical care of Tin people, which is still inadequate. The guidelines for accompanying Tin people in their medical transition are pathologizing, incapacitating and incredibly exhausting. Non-binary people are completely excluded from these guidelines and often have to undergo binary medical transition in order to receive gender affirming care. Here, too, we still have a long way to go.
Legislation/Laws/Bills create reality and the eagerness to define gender based on supposed biological factors affects everyone who does not conform to society’s image of “man” and “woman”. You may remember the discussion that took place during the Olympic Games in Paris about the boxer Imane Khelif. Imane was denied her femininity and the image of the white woman being “beaten up” by the menacing, masculine Imane went viral/ through the media. It was forgotten that these are two athletes who practice a sport in which “beating each other” is the goal.
Suddenly, Imane had to provide proof of her femininity, and her right to practice a sport she had started as a girl against patriarchal resistance was questioned again.
TIN people are excluded from the Gewalthilfegesetz Violence Assistance Act and gender and sexual diversity has still not made it into the Grundgesetz. All this makes us second-class people in the 21st century and I’m so fed up. In times where violence against queer people and the shift to the right is increasing, it becomes all the more important that the Grundgesetz protects everyone.
Because under exactly this constitution, homosexuality and transsexuality were and are discriminated against and criminalized since many years. We have already achieved a lot, but everything we have fought for is currently under constant risk/danger. We will not allow our rights to be taken again and will continue to fight to achieve equality at all levels.
The arduous/exhausting fight for change makes you tired. I am a woman, I am trans, I am a lesbian and I am severely disabled. I know what it means to have to fight for everything and thus understand if people can’t do it right now.
But I fought my way out of it to be able to be the woman I am and managed to be able to stand here today. But that also means that I got a lot of support, the support and acceptance that I didn’t get 15 years ago when I first transitioned. Indeed, something has moved/happened in many minds.
And above all, I had friends who stuck by me and I got to know new wonderful supportive and loving people along the way, which shows me time and again that we are not alone, that we are many and that together we can unleash new strength, unite and fight.
Thank you all!