SelfID law passed in German parliament.

[Brefugee]

It's done.
636 votes
373 yea
251 nay
11 abstentions

Am going to assume that there will now be a long legal challenge. I want to scream.

Hello from Germany! Yes, it is dire. A lot of people don’t understand what is going on. It will take 6 months for the law to become active, and there is much talk of a legal challenge and certain elements of the law being unconstitutional. The ruling coalition are solidly behind it - only a couple of dissensions - and only two parties opposed, the CDU/CSU and AfD. Yep, I’m a thought criminal now.

Hello to all German posters, and commiserations! This is a safe space for thought crime.

(just to add, I didn’t mean to minimise the impact on children and teenagers by not commenting on that aspect of the new law, it’s just the implications there are clearer to me.)

I think that’s exactly what it is.

So many of these countries with self id appear to have sleep walked into it. It does seem this is a known tactic as laid out on the Denton report.

There's little in the UK to be proud of these day but this subject is one where we do seem to be more attuned and questioning and prepared to protect children. It feels as though we are the outlier when even a country like Germany can pass such liberal laws. Is it true that Germany has a clause that would halt self id in the event of a war (to stop men abusing the system to prevent being called to serve)?

Reading that Denmark has had self id now for many years, I'd be interested in hearing from women there how single sex spaces if they exist work and how women and children are protected.

So a criminal could self-id as a woman and anyone who mentions his former name and correct sex without his permission could be prosecuted and fined?

Nope, can't see any problems that would create.

Actually I believe minors WILL need obligatory counseling - for all that's worth 😶. TRAs are already frothing at the mouth about it.

Countries who feel they have to atone for the sins of the past do seem to be prone to disordered thinking coming from identity politics.

@mrshoho

There's little in the UK to be proud of these day but this subject is one where we do seem to be more attuned and questioning and prepared to protect children. It feels as though we are the outlier when even a country like Germany can pass such liberal laws.

Yes and no. OTOH British feminists are miles ahead of Germany in very many aspects. OTOH until now it's also been a less acute issue as the administrative culture differs so starkly. Germany is much more legalistic and thus has escaped the Stonewallification and takeover by de facto Self-ID that seems so clear on every NHS thread for starters.

IF YOU DONT WANT US TO GO THE SAME WAY, VOTE CONSERVATIVE

@Winterborne74
What I don’t understand is what rights women have to single sex spaces in Germany, and how these will be impacted. I’ve seen a couple of reports saying that organisations can choose to provide single sex services and this will not be affected by this change. So is there a fear that self ID will lead to a cultural change which will in turn lead to a decline in single sex provision, rather than the fact that self-ID will have a direct impact on women’s rights in law? Or is there more to it?

Not a lawyer so I'm probably missing some nuance. They deliberately left all of that out, in part to ensure the bill wouldn't need bicameral approval. They did insert a passage (nicknamed the "sauna clause") saying general anti-discrimination law would remain unaffected - thus leaving it up to providers whether or not to continue offering single-sex services. But there's been immediate criticism.of this from all sorts, including the Green Party Anti-Discrimination Czar bellyaching about "policing women's bodies" ( bleurgh.) So legal challenges are likely, and it's also likely any bans will need to be case by case, whatever the fuck that means. And nobody has addressed the fact that some core services (swimming pools! mostly with open plan single-sex showers) are run by municipalities. Lawyers will have a field day.

And if you are about to respond ''But it is the conservatives who have allowed trans-madness to get as far as it has''

If we had had a labour government we would be on that list alongside Spain, Germany and the rest of the Self-ID countries. No shadow of a doubt.

I say this as a life-long labour voter (no more)

Can I just point out in Germany it's a progressive left party propped up in power by Greens. Sound familiar?

They did insert a passage (nicknamed the "sauna clause") saying general anti-discrimination law would remain unaffected - thus leaving it up to providers whether or not to continue offering single-sex services.

How can they have single-sex services based on actual biological sex, if everyone can choose their own legal sex?

Oh god yes, we only have to look at the Cass report and all captured institutions here. We are only at the start of undoing the years of damage.

This is so depressing.
i wonder how long it’ll be before I see naked men in my local pool changing rooms.

"policing women's bodies" ( bleurgh)

@GrumpyPanda I sometimes think the term “gaslighting” is overused, but then you read something like that which is so manipulative that it’s entirely appropriate.

It didn't change the outcome, but I noticed BSW voted unanimously against. One of the underreported background elements in their split from Die Linke has been a rejection of the party's embrace of gender woo. Sahra Wagenknecht has talked a lot about how they've turned their back on class and economics in favour of pronoun bollocks.

People might differ from Wagenknecht on other issues, but it makes a huge difference to even have a minority on the left openly opposed. If the overt opposition is only from the right, and dissidents on the left are afraid to speak up, it's very easy for the whole discussion of gender ideology to become polarised on party grounds. We've got enough experience of the left using shaming tactics to keep everyone onside.

on the contrary, Cass has been much discussed here since the interim report came out.

I am watching and waiting. Meanwhile i am trying to find out what Prison Onset Gender Dysphoria is in German. Will report back.

it isn't as clear cut at that. there is a 2 year age gap, so anyone over 16 having sex with a 14 year old, or 17 with a 15 year old, isn't legal. But they do give leeway if it is a relationship that has been going on for a while.

And no need for anyone to clutch pearls - as though 14 year olds in UK aren't having sex.

sorry for the glut of posts i've been reading and posting. Sara Wagenknecht spoke well yesterday, i thought. I pretty much usually go for Die Linke when i vote, but i may check them out now i can't go Linke.

TBH i don't think in a lot of places much will change day-to-day. I live in a fairly conservative ex-mining area, with a high number of muslims. Our local pool has the changing village arrangement, with family rooms, and people don't generally get naked in the showers there much over the age of 5. My gym is something i will keep an eye on, but generally in this area we don't encounter much in the way of gender woo. It will be interesting to watch Cologne and Düsseldorf which are slightly further away than my nearest town, especially as Cologne likes to position itself as the Gay Capital of Germany.

I can also see Bayern spitting feathers and coming up with special federal rules for themselves.

Gosh, I completely missed that! I am always surprised by how unanimously pro trans / be kind / no harm done public opinion seems in Germany. I am a tentative terf in the UK, but thoroughly in the closet in Germany. Time for a coming out, I think…

Don’t forget about the absolutely disgusting ‘mega brothels’ n Germany where you pay 70 euros to legally sleep with as many vulnerable, trafficked women as you can. Some of them also offer a free buffet for when the poor men need to refuel.
Germany hates women, they always have.

I can also see Bayern spitting feathers and coming up with special federal rules for themselves.

I agree this will play out very differently in different states. Prison services for example are run by the states (though governed by federal law). There will be a very different approach between, say, Berlin and Bayern or Baden Wuertemberg.

Germany in the 60’s had groups pushing for the sexual liberation of children (https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-sexual-revolution-and-children-how-the-left-took-things-too-far-a-702679.html). I feel for women & children there…

The Kentler experiment where they placed kids in foster care with paedophiles (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-german-experiment-that-placed-foster-children-with-pedophiles) was another weird episode in 60’s Germany. Think it went on until early 2000’s