Right-wing Populism and Its Effects on Intersex Policy in Germany

This paper traces the shift from a supportive and open discourse towards intersex claims in the Bundestag in 2013 to a divisive and antagonistic one in 2023. The turn can be largely explained by two factors: first, the rise of the anti-gender discourse of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the shifting position of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and second, opposition against the recent bundling of inter-, trans- and non-binary rights in the self-determination law. After Chancellor Angela Merkel’s moderate approach to gender equality, the CDU, now in the opposition, is trying to reclaim conservative values and voters. Under the new party leader, Friedrich Merz, the CDU is backsliding from a generally supportive discourse of intersex rights to a divisive one. The shift is also a reaction to the current bundling of trans-, non-binary and intersex rights in the planned Selbstbestimmungsgesetz (self-determination law). The law, which would allow individuals to self-determine their sex without medical evaluation, raises ideological and cultural opposition that intersex claims alone did not trigger. For three decades intersex activists’ claims were largely ignored in German politics. But in 2013 the Bundestag passed a reform of the Personenstandsgesetz (Civil Status Law) that allowed newborns with variations of sex characteristics to not be categorized as male or female on birth certificates with the hope that it would take pressure off doctors to surgically assign a sex. This law was passed with the support of all parties. In 2018 a widely supported decision by the Constitutional Court followed that led to the introduction of a third sex category called “diverse.” The current debate over the self-determination law, however, is much more controversial with the AFD claiming that it represents a form of “totalitarianism.” Importantly, the CDU has shifted from a moderate supporter on a variety of gender issues, towards now arguing against core aspects of self-determination with a sort of moral panic discourse echoing far-right language.