The government wants every German to be allowed to change gender once a year. Anyone who continues to use their old first name when addressing them faces a fine of 2,500 euros. Which begs the question: Are trans people particularly sensitive?
I was recently with the FDP in Pullach. The chairman of the local chapter had asked me if I would like to make an appearance with the Liberals. I spontaneously agreed. I haven’t lived in the Isar valley for that long. There’s no harm in making new friends. I would also play for the Greens. But they don’t quite dare to invite me yet.
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After the lecture, a middle-aged woman approached me. She introduced herself to me as a longtime FDP member. What do I think of the Minister of Justice from your party ensuring that everyone can change their gender once a year? She fought for women for years. The fight was not always easy. You had to listen to so many things. She couldn’t understand why in future it should no longer matter whether someone was born a man or a woman.
I had to admit that I’m also at a loss. I don’t know what brings the FDP to join forces with the Greens in social policy of all things. Maybe you’re tired of everyone in the media picking on you all the time and hoping to read something nice about yourself if you’re pretending to be particularly forward-thinking.
Possibly they really believe at the top of the party that it is a blatant injustice when people cannot change their gender as often as they want. So instead of free travel for free citizens, free choice of gender for the friends of freedom. All I can say is that the decision is received rather mediocre at the grassroots level.
What is a hit with the Green Youth does not necessarily have to convince a middle-class audience. When people hear that originally 14-year-olds should have the opportunity to change their gender, if necessary even against the will of their parents, approval in mainstream society falls to zero.
Anyone who has children of puberty knows the obsessions that young people can develop. Some suddenly think they are too fat. Others for too ugly. The third want to maltreat their skin with tattoo needles or use their earlobes to bore tunnels through which a pipe lid then fits.
Luckily most of it grows out. Many follies can be corrected later. The consequences of puberty blockers, such as those prescribed for gender reassignment, can no longer be reversed at some point. The change is irrevocable, which is why a doctor’s recommendation has been mandatory up to now. That, too, should change according to the will of the trans activists.
If someone decides to go through life under a new name in the future, sure, why not? The “Stern” once had an editor named Hollow Skai. His real name was Holger Poscich, as I found out later. But everyone called him Hollow Skai – colleagues, friends, the name even found its way into the “Stern” imprint.
If the good man should one day bless his age, the name of an Indian chief will be found on his tombstone. Today that wouldn’t be so easy anymore, because of cultural appropriation and such. When I started journalism, it was still accepted as punk.
If I’m not mistaken, the right to an annual change of gender and thus name will not remain. A place is now being set up in North Rhine-Westphalia where you can report if you suspect transphobia. Everything below the threshold of criminal liability should be reported here, as the new family minister explained in Düsseldorf. What is reported there? Insults or denigrations already result in penalties today, so that cannot be what is meant.
As you know, the community is extremely sensitive. If you accidentally use your old first name, you’re considered transphobic. Or even worse: as someone who denies the existence of trans people. The federal government is considering whether to criminalize so-called deadnaming. A fine of 2,500 euros for anyone who negligently addresses a trans person by their maiden name.
I think it’s a matter of politeness to address someone in whatever way they find desirable. I also take nobility and professorial titles into account without checking in detail whether the bearer has all the necessary diplomas and family trees. But that you obliterate someone because you address them the wrong way? That seems a bit far-fetched to me.
To what extent is society responsible for personal happiness or unhappiness? That is the question. Hormones affect mood. What medication you have to take to permanently lower testosterone levels as a man is no small matter. That messes up a lot, possibly also the inner balance.
On the internet I came across an entry by a woman explaining why she remembered a lot from the trans scene about her relationship with a narcissistic man, from which she had a hard time breaking free. The hook was the case of a music group that was forced to issue a lengthy statement because one of the musicians, a trans man, had left the band.
The musicians blamed themselves for not showing enough consideration. You would have planned to take care of your colleague and his needs completely. But they would have disappointed him. She knows that well enough, wrote the woman who calls herself Mrs. Moon on the internet: The self-reproaches of never having done enough, the feeling of constantly having to walk on eggshells because one wrong word is enough to bring everything down .
How would I react if my son told me he was trans at the age of 14? I would be worried at first. Not because I wouldn’t think you can’t live a happy life as a trans person. I would be worried that the way there will be difficult. As a parent, you want to protect your child from anything that might cause them harm.
I would advise my son to try out what life as a girl is like before he does something that can no longer be changed. If it turned out that he was really serious about the gender change, I would accompany him on the way. However, I suspect I would still have doubts as to whether there is a need for reporting centers where one can report anti-trans behavior or special legislation that forbids calling someone by their old name.
Most parents put a lot of thought into the name they give their child. If your daughter or son wants to take it off later, that’s the way of things. But why treat the name your parents chose as something to be ashamed of? It brings with it many memories, hopefully some very good ones too. I always think it’s wrong if at a certain point in your life you feel like you have to leave everything behind that you no longer like.
• Read all of Jan Fleischhauer’s columns here.
The readers love him or hate him, Jan Fleischhauer is indifferent to the least. You only have to look at the comments on his columns to get an idea of how much people are moved by what he writes. He was at SPIEGEL for 30 years, and at the beginning of August 2019 he switched to FOCUS as a columnist.
Fleischhauer himself sees his task as giving voice to a world view that he believes is underrepresented in the German media. So when in doubt, against the herd instinct, commonplaces and thought templates. His texts are always amusing – perhaps it is this fact that provokes his opponents the most.
You can write to our author: By email to j.fleischhauer@focus-magazin.de or on Twitter @janfleischhauer.
