Germany has been a front runner in the reforms for intersex rights but its policies have yielded mixed results. I argue here that this is the case because many reforms have been framed as primarily gender- and not health-related issues. Beginning in 2012, Germany passed a peripheral reform of administrative codes in the Civil Status Law (Personenstandsgesetz) regulating the designation of sex among newborns. This change set off a decade-long wave of reforms around intersex human rights: Initial reforms introduced an official third gender designation, which was struck down by the Constitutional Court and followed by a revised law. These political and legal debates focused on gender designation and naming but did not address the central concerns of the intersex community: protecting the bodily integrity of intersex children. Only in 2021 did the parliament outlaw non-life saving surgery and in 2024 it introduced a self-determination law. Despite these reforms prompted by social movement activism, the number of intersex children undergoing surgery does not seem to budge significantly. This paper outlines the meandering path taken by Germany and develops several hypotheses why the policies were misdirected in the first place and why their implementation seems to be seriously lagging.
