A friend of mine has a trans gf from Germany so he explained this quite nicely to me today. There are still two relatively peripheral issues. One is that surnames can’t be changed, which is a problem for anyone from a language with gender-marked surnames (e.g. Russian, Ukrainian, Czech). It’s not an acceptable situation neither with regards to gender nor to grammar (masculine name + feminine surname is just… wrong). The other is that apparently when transitioning you have to change your name, which shouldn’t be necessary for those with gender neutral names that they’d prefer to keep.
The other is that apparently when transitioning you have to change your name, which shouldn’t be necessary for those with gender neutral names that they’d prefer to keep.
I think you can keep it now if it’s gender neutral! But I still think it shouldn’t be any of their business to judge whether your name matches your gender identity, it’s pretty personal.
I’m trans and from Germany. I don’t get what you mean by “when transitioning you have to change your name”. How do you define “transition” then? Who is stopping you from transitioning?
The underlying problem, and you are right there, is that this new ability to self-ID does not touch on any of the laws of anyone’s medical transition. Germany is a country with a more or less working health insurance system that covers most medical expenses. However, although medical transition is definitely necessary for the wellbeing of trans people most health insurances won’t pay for much of your transition. HRT is pretty straightforward to get and as long as you go to enby-friendly endocrinologists you won’t have that much of a problem getting HRT under your old name etc. Speech therapy is even easier to get. But anything like surgery or other medical procedures like laser/electric epilation hair removal are really hard to get covered by a health insurance. In case of gender affirming surgery, you often need to prove the health insurance how binary trans you are and that you really want to transition all the way. With hair removal they usually would pay for it, but only to doctors on a rate that no doctor would agree on.
I know trans people in various stages of their transition and changing their names is not something that anyone had to do. And if you happen to have a gender neutral name, you certainly don’t have to change it.
Given the context, it would be terms of legally transitioning someone’s gender marker.
No clue how true it is. I think this is the proposal for the law, but I don’t know German, so finding the actual bill seems challenging: perma.cc/DML8-XWED
S2 paragraph 3 seems to say they may choose 1 or more names, but idk the nuances of the language to know if that means choosing 0 new names is not allowed?
I searched a bit more online but couldn’t find any more information on this. The text you shared is from last year. But even in there change of one’s gender marker isn’t linked to a change in name. The linked text even talks about changing the name or gender marker.
Mit der Erklärung nach Absatz 1 sind die Vornamen zu bestimmen, die die Person zukünftig führen will und die dem gewählten Geschlechtseintrag entsprechen.
Thank you, it’s possible he or his gf misunderstood some aspect of the law. I pretty much just retold what my friend told me. I’ll definitely ask them both for details when I get the opportunity.
Surnames can always be changed if there’s an important reason. You could argue that this would be the case if you have a gendered surname. Worst case someone has to sue to get precedent on this.
Right, that’s why I listed several languages where the surname is gendered, and people who are native to those languages (including their naming conventions) also live in Germany. Especially today, considering the exodus of Ukrainians.
For example, the current president of Ukraine is called Zelensky. His wife, who took up his surname, is called Zelenska. Or, there’s Putin, and his mother/sister/wife/daughter have or would have the surname Putina. The -y and “null” endings are masculine, -a is feminine.
Somewhere between 1945 and now, Germany and the US decided to slowly trade places.
and I want to trade back
Jokes aside, congrats on the progressive legislation!
Edit: No, I don’t mean I wish the US to return to 1945.🙄 I’m simply saying Germany has continued to become more socially progressive while the US has been struggling with authoritarianism.
No one switched places. The US was really racist, misogynist, and homophobic in 1945. In recent years Germany has become more liberal and accepting than the US.
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