Vom Verbot zur Gleichberechtigung - Hirschfeld-Eddy-Stiftung

114
The Federal Ministry’s prejudice towards transsexuals was also made clear in a statement
submitted to the BVerG on April 7, 1975. Thus, the Federal Ministry of Justice considered
the constitutional complaint (which was later successful, s. above) unfounded,
because personal characteristics were the result of an abnormal development and were
not protected by the Basic Law. The terms “expression of abnormal development”, “false
identification”, and “sexual disorder” are repeatedly used in this statement.
Since the BVerfG had called for a legal regulation in its decision, the Transsexuals’ Law
(Ger. abbr. = TSG) was passed and came into force on January 1, 1981.
In addition to the prejudices described, inaccurate statistics from Sweden, the only country
with a transsexual law up to that point, contributed to the fact that the Transsexuals’
Law turned out to be extremely restrictive. The German Embassy in Sweden claimed that
it had been discovered that there were 7-8 transsexuals per 1000 inhabitants in Sweden.
This would have meant approx. 60,000 transsexuals in a country with only 7- 8 million
inhabitants. The responsible Swedish social authorities told me that there had never
been a statistical survey regarding this question and that they could not confirm the figures.
They also informed me that in 8 years (from 1975 – 1982) a total of 71 changes in sex
had been recorded in official registries, i.e., roughly as many as in a single year in the
Federal Republic of Germany! (Cf. the study by C. Weitze and S. Osburg “Betrachtungen
über zehn Jahre Transsexuellengesetz” in: Recht und Psychiatrie 1993, pp. 94ff, 100.)
If the figures that were cited had been true, there would have been far more sex changes
recorded in official registries in Sweden!
3. Suspension of age limits
The age limits set by the TSG represented a grave and, for those affected, absolutely unacceptable
limitation. In a country where the age of consent is 18, the TSG foresaw a minimum
age of 25 for both the smaller solution, i.e., changing the first name, as well as for
the larger solution, legal recognition of the new gender after sex reassignment surgery!
Luckily, the BVerfG, in turn, proved to be (as so often in the subsequent period) a “helper
in need” for those affected. The constitutional complaint lodged by a 21- year-old postoperative
man-to-woman-transsexual was successful. In a decision on March 16, 1982
(Ref. No. 1 BvR 938/81), the court decided that the age limit of 25 years for the larger solution
represented a breach of Art. 3, paragraph 1 of the Basic Law and was therefore in-