Brief an UN-Son­der­be­richt­erstat­te­rin Reem Alsa­lem zum deut­schen Selbstbestimmungsgesetz

25. Jan 2023

Im Novem­ber 2022 hat die Initia­ti­ve „Lasst Frau­en Spre­chen!“ einen Brief an Reem Alsa­lem – die UN-Son­der­be­richt­erstat­te­rin zu Gewalt gegen Mäd­chen und Frau­en – gesendet.

Zuvor hat­te Reem Alsa­lem einen 9‑seitigen Brief an das schot­ti­sche Par­la­ment geschrie­ben mit einer Stel­lung­nah­me zu deren geplan­ter Self-ID-Gesetz­ge­bung. In die­sem Brief hat­te sie den Stand­punkt von Femi­nis­tin­nen bekräf­tigt, dass die­se Gesetz­ge­bung eine Gefähr­dung für Frau­en­rech­te dar­stellt und daher drin­gend nach­ge­bes­sert wer­den muss.

Ihr Brief ist zum Teil hier in Deutsch über­setzt. Hier kann er voll­stän­dig gele­sen werden.

Wir haben unse­ren Brief ver­fasst, um Reem Alsa­lem dar­auf auf­merk­sam zu machen, dass auch in Deutsch­land eine ähn­li­che Gesetz­ge­bung wie in Schott­land geplant ist und haben um ihre Unter­stüt­zung gebe­ten. Wir sind dar­auf ein­ge­gan­gen, dass die Situa­ti­on der Frau­en­rech­te in Deutsch­land ins­ge­samt zu wün­schen übrig lässt und das Selbst­bestim­mungs­gesetz eine wei­te­re Ver­schär­fung für Mäd­chen und Frau­en darstellt.

Wir ermu­ti­gen auch wei­te­re Grup­pen und Ein­zel­per­so­nen dazu, ins­be­son­de­re Berich­te über Miss­brauch durch Gen­der­iden­ti­täts-Richt­li­ni­en und ‑Geset­ze an die UN und Reem Alsa­lem ein­zu­rei­chen, um die nega­ti­ven Aus­wir­kun­gen für Frau­en zu belegen.

In Fol­ge ver­öf­fent­li­chen wir unser Schrei­ben. 

Self ID legis­la­ti­on and women‘s rights situa­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny – Call for help

Dear Mrs. Alsalem,

your state­ment on the pro­po­sed Sel­fID legis­la­ti­on in Scot­land was a gre­at reli­ef to all femi­nists world­wi­de who have been fight­ing against gen­der iden­ti­ty laws for years. We would like to begin by expres­sing our gre­at gra­ti­tu­de to you for this. In your exten­si­ve let­ter, you go into gre­at detail about the con­se­quen­ces of this legis­la­ti­on for girls and women in Scot­land. We the­r­e­fo­re assu­me that, as an expert, we do not need to explain the con­text to you again in more detail.

Howe­ver, we would like to draw your atten­ti­on to the fact that this legis­la­ti­on in a very simi­lar form is also announ­ced for next year in Ger­ma­ny and what this means for girls and women in the most popu­lous coun­try in cen­tral Europe.

In Ger­ma­ny, plans include:

  • that minors from the age of 14 are allo­wed to deter­mi­ne the ent­ry of their (legal) sex,
  • that men may decla­re them­sel­ves to be women wit­hout an expert opi­ni­on and may chan­ge the ent­ry of their (legal) sex once a year,
  • that a ban on dis­clo­sure pro­tects self-declared “gen­der iden­ti­ty” and makes it a punis­ha­ble offen­se to address a per­son by his or her actu­al sex or ori­gi­nal name.

Only recent­ly – on Novem­ber 18, 2022 – the Ger­man fede­ral cabi­net pre­sen­ted a com­pre­hen­si­ve action plan “Que­er Life”, which is to ser­ve as a road­map for the coming years. For this action plan, the “que­er repre­sen­ta­ti­ve” of the fede­ral govern­ment, Sven Leh­mann, has a sum of 70 mil­li­on euros at his dis­po­sal. Here, not only the “Selbst­bestim­mungs­gesetz“ – the Ger­man ver­si­on of a self ID legis­la­ti­on – is announ­ced, but also, among other things, an amend­ment to the Ger­man con­sti­tu­ti­on (addi­ti­on of a pro­hi­bi­ti­on of dis­cri­mi­na­ti­on on the grounds of an unde­fi­ned “sexu­al iden­ti­ty” to para­graph 3 on equal tre­at­ment) and stric­ter legis­la­ti­on against “hate crime” (“que­er hosti­li­ty”). Sin­ce this action plan is not based on sex but on self-declared “gen­der iden­ti­ty”, we fear far-rea­ching con­se­quen­ces for women’s rights, mate­r­nal rights and child pro­tec­tion. We have sum­ma­ri­zed them in a statement.

As you might know, Ger­ma­ny has beco­me a miso­gy­ni­stic coun­try which refu­ses to accept femi­nist pro­gress. A few examples:

Pro­sti­tu­ti­on has been lega­li­zed in Ger­ma­ny for over 20 years. Ger­ma­ny is thus the brot­hel of Euro­pe, the cen­ter of human traf­fi­cking and the desti­na­ti­on of sex tou­rists from all over the world. The situa­ti­on of women in pro­sti­tu­ti­on is sho­cking. Girls and young women are led into pro­sti­tu­ti­on via “lover­boys” and the online plat­form Only­Fans. The legal purcha­se of sex has nor­ma­li­zed an image of women as com­mo­di­ties for sale in our socie­ty. This is evi­den­ced by Melis­sa Farley’s recent stu­dy on men’s pro­sti­tu­ti­on beha­viour in Germany.

Ger­ma­ny rati­fied the Istan­bul Con­ven­ti­on on Vio­lence against Women rela­tively late – only in 2018. Howe­ver, the full imple­men­ta­ti­on has been delay­ed by the Ger­man govern­ment for almost 5 years, now. Con­ce­ded funds have been spread over the years in such a way that only 5 mil­li­on euros per year have been made available for this pur­po­se. Accor­ding to expert Dr. Kris­ti­na Wolff (Femici­de Obser­va­ti­on Cen­ter), fun­ding runs out at the end of this year. The Istan­bul Con­ven­ti­on is not even men­tio­ned in the fede­ral bud­get. Ins­tead, the plan­ned “Selbst­bestim­mungs­gesetz” sti­pu­la­tes that men (“trans­wo­men”) should also have access to women’s shel­ters. The respon­si­bi­li­ty of deci­ding which men will be gran­ted access is shifted to the alre­a­dy over­bur­den­ed women’s shel­ter staff. The women’s shel­ters are per­ma­nent­ly over­bur­den­ed and suf­fer from very poor fun­ding. At the same time, vio­lence against women and the rate of femici­des have been on the rise for years. The Femici­de Obser­va­ti­on Cen­ter has alre­a­dy coun­ted at least 190 mur­de­red women for this year.

Ger­ma­ny has a very acti­ve fathers’ rights move­ment that influen­ces poli­tics, juris­pru­dence and the media. The situa­ti­on of mothers and child­ren who want to free them­sel­ves from abu­si­ve and vio­lent rela­ti­onships is devas­ta­ting. Also play­ing a role here is the fact that many courts and offices are not even awa­re of the Istan­bul Con­ven­ti­on, let alo­ne have imple­men­ted it. Fathers can tor­ment mothers and child­ren for many years after sepa­ra­ti­on with the help of insti­tu­tio­nal and finan­cial vio­lence (see the results of the “Ham­mer stu­dy”). Mate­r­nal and child pover­ty is com­pa­ra­tively high in Ger­ma­ny. So is the pay and care gap bet­ween women and men.

In Ger­ma­ny, femi­nists have been fight­ing pedo­cri­mi­na­li­ty sin­ce the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, rings of pedo-cri­mi­nal offen­ders with inter­na­tio­nal con­nec­tions have been unco­ver­ed in Lüg­de, Müns­ter and Ber­gisch-Glad­bach. A very high num­ber of unre­por­ted cases can be assu­med. In the con­text of que­er poli­tics, old acquain­tances from the Ger­man pedo-cri­mi­nal sce­ne are once again able to make them­sel­ves heard poli­ti­cal­ly and in some cases sit in influ­en­ti­al posi­ti­ons. The red car­pet will be rol­led out for the­se men with an amend­ment to the Ger­man con­sti­tu­ti­on, para­graph 3, as they can decla­re pedo­phi­lia to be a pro­tec­ted “sexu­al iden­ti­ty”. This was alre­a­dy attempt­ed in 2010.

Ger­ma­ny plays a lea­ding role in Euro­pe con­cer­ning “gen­der reas­sign­ment sur­gery and tre­at­ment”. It is a mar­ket with growth rates of 25%. The­r­e­fo­re, the­re is a well-foun­ded inte­rest on the part of the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try and pla­s­tic sur­gery pro­vi­ders to push for a “self ID legis­la­ti­on” in Germany.

The trans lob­by asso­cia­ti­ons in Ger­ma­ny are excel­lent­ly fun­ded and well net­work­ed in the media, indus­try and poli­tics. They con­duct trai­nings of media, edu­ca­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons, poli­ce etc. all over Ger­ma­ny. In total, they recei­ve almost 3 mil­li­on euros per year from public funding.

Alre­a­dy hap­pe­ning in Germany:

  • Men are trans­fer­red to women’s prisons,
  • Men are allo­wed in women’s shelters,
  • Men take quo­ta posi­ti­ons from women in politics,
  • Men aggres­si­ve­ly demand access to les­bi­an events,
  • Men take repre­sen­ta­ti­ve posi­ti­ons for les­bi­ans in politics ,
  • Les­bi­ans are vio­lent­ly atta­cked at Dyke Marches,
  • Public women’s toi­lets are being cree­pin­gly abolished,
  • Men recei­ve women’s pri­ces, e.g. in arts, sports, beau­ty contests ,
  • Child­ren are indoc­tri­na­ted by gen­der iden­ti­ty ideo­lo­gy in kin­der­gar­ten and school,
  • Women are aggres­si­ve­ly atta­cked by men in poli­tics and the media when they stand
    up for their rights.

The mea­su­res plan­ned by the fede­ral govern­ment within the frame­work of so-cal­led que­er poli­tics thus repre­sent a fur­ther aggrava­ti­on of the alre­a­dy pre­ca­rious situa­ti­on regar­ding women’s rights in Germany.

We would be very gra­teful if you could take a posi­ti­on on this vis-à-vis the Ger­man Fede­ral Govern­ment. We would also be hap­py to talk to you per­so­nal­ly or to pro­vi­de you with fur­ther information.

Yours sin­ce­re­ly

Initia­ti­ve “Lasst Frau­en Spre­chen! / Let Women Speak!”

 

List of sources:

https://geschlecht-zaehlt.de/
https://www.bmfsfj.de/resource/blob/205126/857cb513dde6ed0dca6759ab1283f95b/aktionsplan-queer-leben-data.pdf
https://www.rnd.de/politik/neuer-queerbeauftragter-wie-sven-lehmann-diskriminierung-den-kampf-ansagen-will-6NKZWKPNMRHENJD35L4QMS7YKE.html
https://lasst-frauen-sprechen.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/lfs-statement-engl-291122.pdf
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/pdf/Prostitutionin9Countries.pdf
https://focg.org/
https://jimdo-storage.global.ssl.fastly.net/file/fb951676-6b48-4669–92e4-b8cb17086337/Fact%20Sheet%20Family%20Law%20in%20Germany.pdf
https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/themen/aktuelle-meldungen/2021/juli/armutsrisiko-von-alleinerziehenden-verharrt-auf-hohem-niveau
https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/GrauePublikationen/291_2020_BST_Facsheet_Kinderarmut_SGB-II_Daten__ID967.pdf
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/03/PD22_088_621.html
https://www.bmfsfj.de/bmfsfj/themen/gleichstellung/gender-care-gap/indikator-fuer-die-gleichstellung/gender-care-gap-ein-indikator-fuer-die-gleichstellung-137294
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-allowed-pedophiles-to-foster-children/a‑53839291
https://www.thelocal.de/20220112/germany-identifies-439-suspects-in-paedophile-probe/
https://reduxx.info/pedophile-sympathizer-overseeing-new-lgbt-daycare-project-in-berlin/
https://blogs.feministwiki.org/feuerstein/sexuelle-identitat/
https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/sex-reassignment-surgery-market
https://www.lobbyregister.bundestag.de/suche?q=transgender
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/drei-transgeschlechtliche-personen-von-manner-ins-frauengefangnis-verlegt-8604604.html
https://www.frauenhauskoordinierung.de/aktuelles/detail/fhk-positionierung-gewaltschutz-fuer-alle-frauen
https://www.emma.de/artikel/markus-ganserer-die-quotenfrau-339185
https://4w.pub/lesbian-spring-fest/
https://gruene-bag-lesbenpolitik.de/kontakt/
https://www.rheinpfalz.de/lokal/ludwigshafen_artikel,-gr%C3%BCne-bald-wechsel-an-spitze-des-kreisverbands-_arid,5405343.html?reduced=true
https://reduxx.info/woman-assaulted-at-pride-march-for-saying-men-cant-be-lesbians/
https://geschlecht-zaehlt.de/gibt-es-bald-keine-frauentoiletten-mehr/
https://www.monopol-magazin.de/erste-transfrau-fuer-den-marienne-werefkin-preis-nominiert
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/stil/mode-design/gntm-finale-transgender-model-alex-hat-gewonnen-17362378.html
https://www.schlau.nrw/
https://ronaduwe.substack.com/p/halt-die-fresse-frau

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