Telegraph: Trans self-ID blocked in Germany over fears criminals could escape prosecution

[ResisterRex]

It rather stands out how "mostly" saunas are mixed sex anyway, leading to a "but it doesn't matter" conclusion. Except then, they're not all mixed sex, and so it does matter.

www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/09/germany-trans-self-id-blocked-criminals-escape-prosecution/

"A transgender self-identification law has been blocked at the last minute in Germany over fears it will be abused by criminals trying to escape punishment.
‌The country’s “transsexual law” was set to be replaced by a progressive “self-determination law””_ which would make changing gender a civil procedure, removing the requirement for a medical diagnosis, similar to the law in Scotland. Under current laws, trans people must have their new gender recognised by a court and provide two testaments.
‌The law was set to be agreed by cabinet by the end of the month and voted on in the Bundestag in the autumn after months of tussling between the justice, family and interior ministers, each from different parties within chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious centre-Left coalition.
‌The three ministers met late on Thursday evening for a crisis-summit, but reportedly no concrete solution was found, and the draft of the progressive “self-determination law” was quietly taken off the cabinet’s agenda.
‌The SPD-led interior ministry as well as law enforcement bodies raised concerns that criminals could use the law to escape prosecution.
‌“Important information like criminal records, outstanding arrest warrants and weapons licences need to be recognizable to prosecutors in databases after changing name and gender,” Dirk Peglow, chair of the Alliance of German Legal Civil Servants, told the German news magazine Der Spiegel."

The sauna bit:

"‌The German association of sauna managers also voiced concern over the new law, forcing the government to assure saunas they could enforce their own entry policies.
Ferda Ataman, the ‌anti-discrimination commissioner, has accused the government of bowing down to Right-wing populism with the delay after it put the brakes on the reform.
‌“It’s being said that we have to be worried about men and women no longer being clearly defined, and men changing their gender just to get into a sauna and gawp at women.” But, she pointed out “in Germany we have mostly mixed-sex saunas anyway. No man has to legally change their gender to see a naked woman.”"

Accessible in this tweet:

https://twitter.com/sorellearduino/status/1678076029951262724?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

A late outbreak of common sense in the nick of time!

Congratulations to any of my sisters in Germany who are reading this!

A bit of common sense at last.

So there are some same sex only saunas despite most being mixed sex? Is that right?

Perhaps it's not well understood that the goal is not purely to see women naked but to violate the boundaries of women who have chosen same sex saunas for a reason. There is no boundary violation in mixed sex spaces when everyone there has chosen to be there. So no fun in that.

I always thought, of all the nations to go TRA and Self ID, other than the UK, I couldn't ever imagine Germany.

Despite the last minute reprieve, they nearly proved me wrong.

removing the requirement for a medical diagnosis, similar to the law in Scotland.

proposed law in Scotland. It's still blocked by the UK parliament. Although there is de facto self-id in prisons, hospitals etc.

No man has to legally change their gender to see a naked woman.

But to harass women and get away with it, legally changing gender is a free pass. Even in a mixed-sex sauna there are rules, written and unwritten, about how men and women behave around each other. It's not about the seeing, it's about the opportunity to break women's boundaries with impunity.

the anti-discrimination commissioner, has accused the government of bowing down to Right-wing populism with the delay

Well, some things seem to be universal. You don't like it = you're a rightwing populist.

One day, the extreme left "be kind" brigade will get it through their thick skulls that the trouble isn't seeing just any naked female. Those are a dime a dozen or as the report correctly observes, for free. This is about women who do not want to be seen naked by men or who have chosen certain times to share and certain times not to share nudity with the male gaze. It is about men exerting external control over a woman's chosen boundary despite other options being freely available.

Why not? Germany practically invented this stuff ;)

extremely worrying that protecting women’s privacy is described as “right wing populism”. Political polarisation, another great American export.

Did they? I thought it was the Dutch.

Actually, I think the left ought to be more careful.

It is possible to drive people from the centre ground, and even the left, further to the right than they would normally go by pushing ideologies those people see as harmful.

click

such a good point

Malcolm Clark thread that may be of interest

twitter.com/twisterfilm/status/1662967081191497728?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

It is actually quite difficult even to change your name in Germany

https://www.crosschannellawyers.co.uk/how-to-change-your-name-in-germany/

I suspect that you have hit the nail on the head.

There are often 'lady days' whereby male people are banned for the day. Very popular, often during weekdays and stems from the days when men worked anyway. Women often take the day off specially to do this.
There are also sauna's that are single sex.

What matters in this is that when a woman chooses to go to a mixed sex sauna, she knows she will encounter male people. If she chooses a single sex day or sauna, she is explicitly choosing not to encounter male people. Letting male people in would breach the womens boundaries.

Of course certain male people will then target those single sex days and saunas. And of course women will complain and stop going. Sauna's are businesses, this will hit them hard as women are the majority of their clients during weekdays.

German here. There are usually one or two sessions a week that are women-only or men-only. I've been to the ladies' night once, never again - too crowded and chatty - but I do have women friends who aren't comfortable with mixed. Say because they've been to sessions where they feel somebody violated the social code by staring.

It's actually a bit bizarre - either another TRA ploy, or just because it appeals more to the tabloids - how the debate has been made out to be about saunas. Issues are much more likely to arise around municipal swimming pools - all communal showers, usually with one or two extra cubicles in a corner of the room - and fitness studios (communal changing with adjoining communal showers and often a single-sex sauna cabin.) All the more troublesome because the sauna discussion has been largely about the "Hausrecht" of private providers when pools are usually publicly run. Also, TRAs have reduced the debate to safety issues when existing anti-discrimination law as well as the proposed tweaks to the self-ID law explicitly mention privacy as well ("Schutz der Intimsphäre").

@GrumpyPanda Thanks for that insight. Agree that 'there are naked woman in the sauna anyway' really misses the point. I have once or twice taken part in a mixed sex sauna in Germany and there was still clear sex segregation in the changing areas. I found the mixed sex nudity in the sauna itself a bit uncomfortable (I felt Very British) but reassured by the way that a sauna is quite rule-bound, almost a ritual, and people behave in very rule-bound ways. The men were all very polite about not staring. One of the men coming into the women's changing area would have felt entirely different. When you're concentrating on washing or changing, you're not focused on the other people in the space, and you're much more vulnerable.

@GrumpyPanda Interesting that the women's night was too crowded... Sounds like a single sex space is quite popular then!

“Also, TRAs have reduced the debate to safety issues when existing anti-discrimination law as well as the proposed tweaks to the self-ID law explicitly mention privacy as well ("Schutz der Intimsphäre").”

Interesting. There’s a poster on another thread on here (gender and policy) seeking to do exactly that too, but in relation to prisons rather than saunas.

@worrieddragon true dat. I'd say it's a mixture of some women not being comfortable in mixed settings and others coming for the girls' bonding experience. Hence the chatting, which is somewhat frowned on in a traditional sauna setting 😀

Yup. See it on Twitter all the time too. Thereafter it goes in one of two directions: 1) "anyway, genuine dysphorics wouldn't be caught dead in that type of situation - hence the occasional "queer night" at the local pool in some major cities" (fine, then, if nobody wants to crash these spaces why NOT clarify in law they shouldn't be crashed?). And 2) "but it's the nasty cissssss men who are the danger". And so on and so forth. Anyone else sometimes feel we could just recreate the entire dialogue by ourselves, it's just so predictable?