The German legislation will allow adults to change their first name and legal gender at registry offices without further formalities. The new rules will allow minors 14 years and older to change their name and legal gender with approval from their parents or guardians; if they don’t agree, teenagers could ask a family court to overrule them. In the case of children younger than 14, parents or guardians would have to make registry office applications on their behalf.
After a formal change of name and gender takes effect, no further changes would be allowed for a year. The new legislation focuses on individuals’ legal identities. It does not involve any revisions to Germany’s rules for gender-transition surgery.
Among others, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Spain already have similar legislation. In the U.K., the Scottish parliament in 2022 passed a bill that would allow people aged 16 or older to change the gender designation on identity documents by self-declaration. That was vetoed by the British government, a decision that Scotland’s highest civil court upheld in December.
In other socially liberal reforms, Scholz’s government has legalized the possession of limited amounts of cannabis; eased the rules on gaining German citizenship and ended restrictions on holding dual citizenship; and ended a ban on doctors “advertising” abortion services. Same-sex marriage was already legalized in 2017.
Yeah, Olaf Scholz tweeted yesterday about how progressive and important this is and the mfer didn't even bother to be present for the vote.
Now, don't get me wrong, this is a massive step forward, it has saved me a ton of money and a lot of ... it's hard to say if it would've just been cringe and weird or some humiliating white-knuckle ride for me to go through the TSG procedure instead. I seriously can't tell. I have a lot of friends who are like "it wasn't that bad anymore", but i don't know how well i would've handled the interviews and reading through several pages of being misgendered and deadnamed (they continue doing that in the very documents that legally confirm you are actually the gender you say you are).
So yeah, the trans people i'm in community with have been celebrating yesterday when this passed, but we're not forgetting what led up to this and we're not forgetting the battles ahead of us.