The Greens want to bring in the Interior Committee three amendments to the bill of the Interior Ministry on the third gender option. The applications are available to SPIEGEL. The group calls for far-reaching changes, among other things, the obligation to register for intersexuals should be abolished. In addition, the law should be opened to other groups.
These changes would eliminate two of the central criticisms of associations and stakeholders.
The draft of the Ministry of Interior provides that in the future in the civil status law in addition to the options "male" and "female" should also give the entrance "divers". But the draft should only apply to intersex people, ie people who are not biologically assigned to one gender. (An overview of gender identities can be found here).
According to the request of the Ministry of the Interior, they must present a medical certificate and prove that there is a variant of gender development before those affected can change the entry.
"Design ignores groups like transsexuals and transgender people"
Sven Lehmann, LGBTI spokesman and member of the Bundestag of the Greens, explains: "The draft pathologizes and patronizes intersex people by demanding nonsensical medical certificates from them, just to change their gender." "LSBTI" stands for lesbian, gay, bi-, trans- and intersex.
One of the amendments states: "As children and adolescents, they had to undergo serious surgery, long-term hormonal treatments and torments (eg mechanical vaginal stretching over a long period of time) at the urging of doctors to look after their body and appearance to match a male or female body. "
The Greens also criticize that the draft excludes those who are not intersex, but still feel that they belong to any gender. "He ignores other groups, such as transsexuals and transgender people, who must continue to be diagnosed as mentally ill in order to correct their incorrect gender entry," says Lehmann DER SPIEGEL.
Some countries have already failed with an initiative
As early as October 2017, the Federal Constitutional Court had asked the Federal Government either to create a third gender entry, or alternatively to delete the gender entry from the civil status. The government is under time pressure, until 1 January 2019 there must be a new regulation. The Ministry of the Interior had presented the bill this summer.
The provincial governments of Rhineland-Palatinate, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg had already called on the Federal Council in the summer to expand the number of persons to whom the law applies. However, at a meeting on 19 October, the Federal Council had decided not to raise any objections to the bill and rejected the request of the Länder.