So how are things going in Germany?

[Toutafait]

So Germany brought in self-ID almost a year ago, together with a hefty fine for deadnaming. I have a German friend, and he tells me that trans rights are now a non-issue in Germany. Nobody ever talks about them, apparently. So I'm wondering whether everything's going well ("transwomen" behaving like women, no children being inappropriately transitioned and operated on, nothing else bad happening), or whether bad things are happening and it's being swept under the carpet.
I've asked ChatGPT whether there are any problems, and I'll give you its response. It has mentioned the case of the Nazi criminal self-IDing to get access to a women's prison, but no other specific incidents. Does anyone have any more information?

"Where problems and discussions continue

Social acceptance & discrimination
Even though many things are now easier legally, trans and non-binary people continue to report everyday discrimination, prejudice and hate crimes.
Deutsche Welle
+1
Many such incidents continue to go unreported for fear of reprisals or because those affected do not believe that taking action will make any difference.
Deutsche Welle

Political and public controversies
There is criticism from conservative or right-wing circles, particularly with regard to minors, possible ‘risks of abuse’ in self-determination, or fears that the rights of women or other groups could be affected. Although many of these allegations are controversial, they accompany the debate.
Deutsche Welle
+1

The issue of minors remains difficult
Although changes are possible for young people aged 14 and over under certain conditions (parental consent, etc.), the treatment of younger children in particular remains controversial. Opinions differ on how extensive and early medical/specialised support should be (e.g. puberty blockers, hormone treatments), and there are practical hurdles such as access, costs, specialists, etc.
bild.de
+1

Enforcement and application in practice
Laws are one thing — how they are actually implemented is often another. For example, there are regional differences in Germany, delays at government offices, ambiguities among government employees, or problems with international documents, passports, etc.
Deutsche Welle
+1

Rights vs. public safety & institutions
A current dispute: a convicted neo-Nazi who has legally changed his gender is to serve his prison sentence in a women's prison. This has sparked a debate about whether and how the new law can be abused there and which institutions need to prepare for such cases and how.
The Washington Post"

Just a few minutes ago I came across a trailer about a documenterary on FB. It's by Arte, a channel which is a French-German cooperation and it's about a lingerie boutique in Israel. They had a TIM being fitted for the first bra. Quite a few people in the comments were "how brave, how stunning" but there was also push back. At least two women mentioned Malaga Airport.
Of course, some of the more critical comments had a whiff of right wing extremist, but there is dissent and I think the amount of people pushing back will only grow. A lot of women I know are GC but wouldn't dare to voice that in the open for fear of their jobs, me included.
While my subsidiary is quite "old fashioned", the wider company is pretty "bring your whole self to work" and "everyone is who they say they are", so if you want to progress, it's hard if you stick your head above the parapet.
Ironically, it's a very male dominated industry, at our location not even a fifth of the work force are women, and most of those are in office based jobs. Only one female engineer and a handful of women in production.
From documentaries I've seen about our products and pictures on the intranet, it seems to be the same in other locations, at least when it comes to production.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel, or so it seems. For the last few years TW were featured in everything that had anything to do with EDI, even in the widest sense. This year, none. We are an international company, HQ is in another EU country, a few locations in the UK and they seem to be pushing back bit by bit. Hopefully, Germany will follow before too long.

It is a long time ago, but I read a linguistic study that asked children to draw "mankind" and they only drew men, while when they asked them to draw "human kind", they also drew women. So terms like "manpower" and "manhole cover" not only make women invisible in language, but likely have real life consequences.

May have been included in Dale Spender's Man Made Language? She was an absolute star, so good at making seemingly abstruse linguistic texts clear and accessible to the lay reader.

I'm no longer willing to consider any study results where I can't see the methodology. I'm also fast losing interest in anything that hasn't been solidly replicated. The mess in academic research didn't suddenly crop up in the last 10 or 15 years, it's a long-standing, serious problem.

That's an author I can highly recommend. I think those linguists researching German language I mentioned were also influenced by her.
Here's an overview over her work:
https://frauenkultur.co.uk/tag/dale-spender/

From the topics, you can see that many things we take now for granted have been fought over just a few decades ago (and are still ongoing).

@Igneococcus

Wasn't that excluded in the law, precisely for the problem you mention?

I just came across this topic on the Spiegel website, but it's behind a paywall, not available on archive, either. Searched and found a free version on the FAZ website:
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/kriminalitaet/hat-ein-polizist-das-geschlecht-fuer-die-befoerderung-gewechselt-110777218.html

Bascially a police officer changed his gender marker at the registry office and the police are disputing that this was genuine as the person jumped 43 places in the "promotion waitlist". The police then put a stop to further promotions of this person as "TIM" had mentioned that they were doing this to enhance their chances of advancing at a quicker pace.
First court case the person won, police were told they had to promote this person. Police then immediately put another "do not promote" flag on this person's file because they'd heard that this officer wanted to get the promotion as a woman, then "transition" back go get married as a man.

Sorry if this is not the best summary, it's been a long week and my brain does not want to co-operate.

@Maerchentante

someone made a thread about that, here's more:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5442355-german-police-officer-being-taken-to-court-for-faking-trans-identity?reply=148491942

(I now get an error message when clicking this link, I don't know why, but you'll find the topic on here :) )

But the FAZ article is new and it hasn't been mentioned yet that the difference was 43 places, which is a lot.

Edit:
the archive.is now has the Spiegel-article, if you want to post it over there, too:
https://archive.is/AF5wA

Ha, that's what I get for not looking thoroughly - sorry about that.

Has that post been taken down? When I click on the link I get an error message 404.

no, it's there, but I noticed the problem, too. I don't know why.
If you go through forum posts on the first or second page, you should see it (I hope).

This is the title of the other thread:
"German Police Officer being taken to court for "faking trans identity" "

Thanks - found it now.

I visited my friend (a scientist) in Berlin about 6 months ago and while she said they had had all of the same discussions and media frenzy to the point of distraction over it, she said it had calmed down in the news and she was more worried about the rise in the far right.

I've said it before multiple times but you can't get any further right than men taking away rights from 51% of the population.

I just wanted to say that as a non native but fluent German speaker living in Germany (my work is 100% in German) I think the language problem in discussing this issue is more basic than has been discussed so far - in everyday conversation there is no word to make the distinction between biological sex and gender.

Im in a very traditional area of Germany, quite a long way from the nearest big city, and work in a social work related field...
It creates quite an interesting situation with a disproportionate number of quite alternative people who very much want to be inclusive (mostly - a few of them not so much with foreigners) in a quite traditional setting... A few months ago a colleague told me in so many words that there's a new agency worker in a department we work with who is "a woman who used to be a man... well you know what I mean, tranman - nah transfrau oder? and anyway he... she... seems very nice ..." but that was a totally unselfconscious and unthought through blurt!

I have only had one really interesting conversation on this subject because everyone very much watches what they say - but I have a young, gay, male colleague who I got into a discussion with (he is open to trying to see other people's points of view and we have some common ground on completely unrelated things where we've been of the same opinion and backed one another, but he is very much TWAW) . I tried to explain that I think gender is a social construct and I only define myself as a woman because of my biology and the experiences of living my whole life with this biology. It's not the easiest discussion to have in German because if you say sex that means the act of having sex or sexual things, and sexuality is a big topic but that's sexual orientation - Geschlecht is just used for both biological sex and gender. To have the conversation I had to clarify what exactly I meant and that in English gender never means biological sex.

If you only have one word in use in ordinary everyday language which doesn't allow you to make the distinction between sex and gender thinking gets muddy!

He did agree he couldn't define what living as a woman actually meant, after I said I live as a woman because I'm experiencing menopause and have a body which has been through pregnancy and childbirth, and because I live with knowledge of the hit my pension took due to multiple maternity leaves and complying with the social expectation that I as the mother would be the parent to work part time until the children were all at Kindergarten... He accused me of being negative about being a woman though... I don't think I changed his mind, but how can anyone discuss or even think properly if Geschlecht, meaning gender, is the only word available?

@ThatIsAVeryOrangeOrange "biologische Geschlecht" is the term I've seen used for "sex" not "gender".

I've never heard anyone use that term. In ordinary everyday situations people (where I live and work anyway) only use Geschlecht and really don't clarify.

German speakers who write about the trans movement are using the term biologische Geschlecht. I've seen plenty of examples online. I appreciate that most people won't be using the term in everyday conversation. Just as in the UK lots of people, even now, think that sex and gender mean the same thing and throw a "gender party" when they find out what their unborn baby's sex is. And I'm sure there's a lot more in the news about these issues in the UK than there is in Germany.