“I am gay, not queer and against the gender-delusion”: Lesbian and gay ‘anti-gender’ politics and the rise of new homonormative alliances against gender self-determination policies in Germany

When the new government in Germany took office in 2021, they announced their plans to reform the so-called “Transsexual Law” (Transsexuellengesetz”) and to introduce a new “Self-determination Law” (“Selbstbestimmungsgesetz”). The proposed “Self-determination Law” should simplify the procedure to change one’s legal gender/assigned sex, especially by allowing self-identification without medical diagnosis and psychological assessment. However, these reform plans not only evoked immense criticism and protest from the ‘usual’ anti-gender/anti-feminist proponents (e.g. from the Christian-conservative and right-wing spectrum), they were also contested from within the left-liberal government coalition as well as by various (cis-)gay and (cis-)lesbian organizations, activists and ‘out’ politicians. Against the background of these more recent debates, and by specifically looking at the first reading of a – due to political pressure - changed version of the “Selbstbestimmungsgesetz” in the German parliament in November 2023, our presentation aims to shed light on lesbian/gay ‘anti-gender’ politics and related trans-hostile/anti-trans critiques of the proposed law. We will shed light on how certain lesbian and gay proponents not only contribute to a ‘modernization’ of anti-gender rhetoric but also how trans-hostility plays a formative, albeit contested, role in contemporary debates about ‘respectability’ and LGBTIQ*-inclusion”. While trans* bodies have long been marginalized within established LGBTIQ* politics, we will illuminate how trans hostility and a anti-gender rhetoric are now actively mobilized by particular (cis-)gay/lesbian organizations, activists and ‘out’ politicians thereby enabling new and powerful homonormative alliances between ‘traditional’ anti-gender actors and parts of the LGB(TI)Q* movement.