Things get increasingly stranger as gender identity politics spread across the world, but one of the craziest things to happen this year has to be the passing of the German self-ID law or SELBSTBESTIMMUNGSGESETZ’ (pronounced a bit like Selbst-bish-timmonz-g-zets) as it is rather spectacularly known in Germany.
Selbstbestimmungsgesetz basically abolishes sex in law and replaces it with ‘gender identity’. Or at least, it merges and confuses the two in a manner which makes it difficult for the layperson to see where one is supposed to end and the other begin.
When we are expected to hold the ideas that sex and gender are exactly the same thing and yet two totally different things at the same time, rational analysis of the subject becomes almost impossible.
Humans can’t change sex
To be clear, however much we want to, however much we may re-arrange or chop and change our body parts, human beings can’t change sex. We may mimic the external attributes of the opposite sex; we may perform the stereotypes more often associated with the opposite sex, but we cannot actually change our sex. It’s in our DNA. We are not clownfish, nor are we unicorns. Or characters in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
Our birth certificates and passports record our sex, which is observed- not assigned- at birth. There is no more reason why our legal documents should record how our inner soul feels about gender stereotypes than how it feels about our favourite flavour of ice cream.
The idea that men can ‘become’ women, or that they ‘always were’ women, is a legal fiction, but a bloody whopping great fiction nonetheless.
On the 1st November 2024, Self-ID passed into German law, although citizens have been able to apply for a change of ‘gender entry’ since August. The application takes three months to process. By the end of September 2024, over 15,000 people had applied to lie about their sex on their legal documents.
Before 2024
Prior to this, German had the Transsexuellengesetz (Transsexual Law) of 1981.
“When it was enacted in 1980, the Transsexuals Act… was described as “the most progressive law in the world”.
If a citizen wanted to legally change their sex they would need to undergo psychiatric evaluations and obtain a court order. They would be expected to show they were serious about the change through ‘living as’ the desired sex for several years. They would be expected to take cross-sex hormones and undergo surgeries. Clinicians would also be expected to advise a court that it was highly unlikely that the patient would change their mind and that they were fully committed to the ‘gender change’. Only when these criteria were met would a legal ‘gender change’ be authorised.
No more, nicht mehr, such controls in Germany. Friday’s new law sweeps all these requirements under the carpet. There is no longer any requirement whatsoever in order to ‘change your gender’ in Germany, other than the ability to fill in a form and deliver it to the registry office.
I know very little of the legal history of transgender law reform in Germany. I did come across the Report on Reform of the Transsexuals Act 2016 which callied for the process to be simplified. Among its recommendations were that children of transgender parents should be given falsified documents (ie birth certificates) which lied about their parent’s sex in order ‘to correspond with the reality in which the child lives”.
The ‘reality’ referred to is, of course, not reality at all.
It is therefore no surprise that the same report calling for an end to the pathologisation of trans identities and the removal of restrictions on ‘gender change’ sees no issue in also demanding “stigma-free access to surgery, hormone treatment and psychological support that are reimbursed by the health care system.”
If you want to know more about Self-ID law in Germany I would direct you to Lasst Frauen Sprechen, which has an excellent assessment of the law change, here.
You can read the Berlin District Office’s Information on the Act of Self-Determination, in English, here.
How do you ‘change gender’ in Germany now?
For some reason, German legislators decided to go along with the demands of various lobby groups and agree that the hurdles standing before men who wished to access women’s spaces were too high.
Too harsh? I think not. This law has not come into place out of concern for the welfare of women and children.
The new process is astonishingly simple. Any adult German citizen can fill in a form, stating their new gender identity, present it at the Standesamt (register office) in person or by post, and three months later receive an official ‘gender change’ document.
They can then request that old documents (passport, driving licence etc) are reissued with the new first name and ‘gender entry’, and thus Dieter Schmidt (M) becomes Dana Schmidt (F) with a simple flourish of the gender fairy’s wand.
No checks take place, no questions are asked.
How many genders?
There are four choices: You can leave the gender marker blank, choose male or female, or you can call yourself ‘divers’, which embraces both intersex and non-binary options. German people thus have four options to choose from and when I say choose I really do mean choose. Here is a form for adult declarations, linked to from the website of the German Mission in the United States (GMUS)
What about babies?
Ah yes, babies. In Germany now, parents get to choose for their babies. No more of that pesky ‘gender assigned at birth’ nonsense. No more of that horrible bigoted sex realism.
Parents can register their baby– whatever its sex– as male, female, ‘divers’, or even as having no sex at all.
The GMUS website also links to a form for declaring your German baby’s birth abroad. This form is bilingual (see below). It asks for the sex of the mother, father and newborn, on each occassion offering the four options. Therefore it is now possible to state, on a legal document, that a male gave birth to a sexless baby, fathered by a female.
A child of five can now consent to their own ‘gender change’ but parents must also give permission. This is especially disconcerting, as generally speaking we don’t expect 5 year olds to be able to consent to anything much beyond eating the carrot sticks before the biscuit. And possibly not even that.
The result is that children may be raised with genuine ignorance as to which sex they are.
Of course it should go without saying- but still, I will say it again. However much they might want to believe it is possible, nobody can change sex. All the hormones and surgeries in the world cannot turn a girl into a boy or vice versa. Everybody has a sex, including those with DSDs, and it is important not to lose track of this when swimming in the waters of woowoo.
What this nonsense will do to the children of ‘progressive’ parents, little ‘theybies’ raised to believe their sex is immaterial, or children downright lied to about their sex altogether, is hard to fathom. If the idea of parents behaving like this seems ridiculously unlikely to you, bear in mind that actress Megan Fox believes she could sense her child’s attitudes to gender when he was just a foetus.
“When I became pregnant with Noah, I could feel, through my mother’s intuition I suppose, that he was not subscribing to gender stereotypes.”
If it still seems ridiculous to you, remember that Jazz Jennings’ mother transitioned him age two, declared him ‘trans’ on TV age seven, and made him a ‘farewell penis’ cake after arranging for him to have his penis removed at the age of seventeen.
Don’t be fooled into thinking for one moment that there aren’t parents out there who will happily exploit this nonsense in order to ‘prove’ they have a special or different child.
There are also concerns beyond the psychological wellbeing of small children. In Germany, circumcision of baby boys is permissable only for medical reasons. If a baby girl is registered as a boy, does she still have legal protection against FGM, which is illegal in Germany?
If a child’s name and sex marker are so easily changed, how simple will it become for vulnerable or trafficked children to disappear?
And of course a child raised to believe they have been born in the wrong body because of the toys they play with or the clothes they wear is more likely to go to become a medical patient as they grow older, with blockers, hormones, surgeries and in some cases, detransition, playing a huge part in their lives, as they continue to fight an un-winable battle with reality.
Teens
Under the new law, young people aged 14-18 will need parental consent to make a ‘gender change’ on their own behalf. They must declare that the child has received counselling but do not have to prove it. If the child’s parents do not support the ‘gender change’, a court order can be issued over-ruling their decision. More later on the ‘misgendering’ laws which will further provide a wedge with which to divide families.
Concerns about the rise in trans-identification in troubled young people are swept under the carpet. Trans-identified girls now vastly outnumber trans-identified boys in many countries. Young lesbians and autistic girls are over-represented in this cohort. Young people are being told their sex is a choice, a burden that they can escape, when this is clearly a lie.
I find it hard to understand why, if I, with my limited knowledge of the law, can see these huge inconsistancies and potential for harm, the German government was blind to them.
“The Magnitude of the Consequences”
The gender change form (above) refers to the importance of acknowledging the ‘magnitude of the consequences’ of legal gender change but what of the consequences for those who refuse to play along with the madness?
Rumours are circulating that those who trangress, who deadname or misgender a trans-identified person may be sent to prison. This is untrue, but rumours are so rife that AI has picked up on them, showing how easily it can be misled:AI aslo told me “Intentionally refusing to use someone’s correct(?) pronouns is considered harassment and a violation of civil rights”. Tread very carefully with AI. The world has a tenuous enough grip on reality as it is.
German feminist Rone Duwe explains how the ‘prohibition on disclosure’ ruling works, here:
“A prohibition on disclosure prohibits the naming of a person’s sex and former name. This prohibition now also applies to family members in the adopted law. The intention is decisive here. Anyone who does not name the sex and former name with the intention of causing offence and in a friendly manner is to remain unpunished. Anyone who violates the ban on disclosure will face a fine of up to EUR 10,000.”
The US Law Library of Congress has this to say about the Prohibition of Disclosure clause:
“According to section 13 of the SBGG, the previous gender entry and name may not be disclosed or investigated. This rule is designed to protect the individual from having their previous name and registered gender revealed to others or from being traced…
Exceptions are possible in certain cases, such as when special reasons of public interest require disclosure.”
So the clause is there to prevent the individual ‘from being traced’. What could possibly go wrong?
As for the fines, it seems that intent is everything. The lawyers will be rubbing their hands.
Ten thousand euros is a huge amount of money. We can presume (for now) that fines of that magnitude would not be imposed on an exasperated parent trying to talk some sense into their child. But the idea of a fine as penalty for correctly sexing another human certainly lends gravitas to the claims of a hyperbolic teen wailing that misgendering is literal violence.
Most importantly it raises the question: how are women and girls supposed to exercise the single-sex exemptions that they’ve been assured will still be availabe to them, when they can be fined and ostracised for daring to call a man a man? How can women identify dangerous men when the law offers a simple and specific provision for those men to prevent themselves from being traced?
12.05 in Germany
“Dear sisters, we are in need. We, the women. Not only in Germany – worldwide, whether west or east, whether north or south… When it is too late we in Germany say, „It is five past twelve.“ And for all of us it really is five past twelve or the eleventh hour. We are in need and we need solidarity.”
Initiative “Lasst Frauen Sprechen!“ is the organisation behind the global protests which took place on November 1st 2024. While ‘lasst frauen sprechen‘ translates as ‘let women speak’, they are not affliliated with the English organisation of that name.
You can view their website in English here and their Twitter account here.
“On the occasion of the so-called “Self-Determination Act” (SBGG) taking effect, there will be protests against the SBGG in Berlin and worldwide on November 1, 2024… the goal of the protest is to draw the attention of politicians and the public to the destructive effect of the SBGG on women’s and children’s rights, science, freedom of expression and democracy…” declared Lasst Frauen Sprechen in a press release.
The press release went on to say that protests would take place at 12:05pm local time in front of the German Embassy or German Consulate of each participating country, and that each group of women hoped to present protest letters to the German ambassador in their own country.
“A particularly large gathering is expected to take place in front of the German Embassy in London.”
They weren’t wrong about that.
Twelve0FiveUK
Initially, the London turnout was not expected to be huge. But we aren’t called TERF Island for nothing! Almost immediately the idea began to grow. It was to be a grassroots protest, with no one group or organisation dominating, women coming together as individuals under one banner to show support for their German sisters. Quickly more and more women became involved, as everyone worked out who could bring what to the endeavor.
Groups were set up, leaflets and stickers designed and printed out, banners and placards made. Women sourced stepstools and megaphones, hiviz and recording equipment. Speeches were planned and an itinery reckoned.
A Twitter account was set up, @twelve0five, which provided a 31-day countdown until the law change and the global protest. Women sent in videos explaining why they supported the action and these were shared from the account.
Twelve0Five released a press statement announcing the protest:
“On November 1st 2024, 12:05pm a protest will take place at the German Embassy, 23 Belgravia Square, London, against the “Self-Determination Act” (SBGG) which comes into effect in Germany. For the first time in history, women will be demonstrating globally, at the same time, to protect the essential and meaningful category of ‘sex’.”
On the morning of November 1st, a Friday, we began to gather outside the embassy at 11.45am for a 12 noon start. The Embassy is only a short walk from Victoria and I’m told the crisp autumn morning and the perfectly polished streets of Belgravia all felt very ‘Bridget Jones’ to those coming from further afield. Women, and men, had come from all over the country to show support for German women. By 11.45 there were about 150 peope gathered, waving banners at passing cars, chanting and occasionally shouting.
A police officer stationed outside the Embassy introduced himself and said he was here to keep an eye on things. He told us to ask him if we needed anything and asked us to keep off a stretch of white pavement running directly alongside the embassy, as that was German territory. This was easier said than done: as our numbers grew larger, we spilled over the invisible line again and again, and he patiently herded us back, again and again.
It was amazing to see the banners and placards gathering. As the time approached noon we were preparing to start- and still more people were arriving!
Someone had a megaphone and she was shouting something – I couldn’t quite catch what- to the passing traffic. A lorry passing by honked and waved and a group of women cheered. On the other side of the road, people had begun handing out leaflets to passers by (see below). Some were engaged in conversation. Several people were filming on their phones; a few had cameras on tripods. Happy greetings rang out as people who hadn’t seen each other for ages arranged themselves into smaller groups. One group was singing, others looked more serious.
It was quickly decided that the speeches should take place in front of a lanky abstract statue, on a wide piece of pavement fairly close to the steps. The organisers set down their step stool and got out a megaphone. A smartly-dressed young man came out of the building and talked to some of the organisers, who told him they would like the ambassador to come out and join them. The women tried to hand this co-worker a letter, but he wouldn’t take it. We were told again to move off the white bit of pavement. We have still heard nothing from the German Ambassador.
Shortly after twelve o’clock it was time to lay the wreath, followed by a minute’s silence. By this point, between two and three hundred people had gathered and numbers were still increasing.
A beautiful wreath of willow and ribbons had been created for the occassion by Sun Dyke, in sufragette colours, and this was laid on a cushion, on the Embassy steps, with a card. A bunch of black roses was placed next to it. A golden wreath of dead autumn leaves was also laid, accompanied by a bunch of pink and white roses.
The willow wreath was laid by Andi at 12.04.
A minute’s silence followed, which ended at exactly 12.05.
Speeches
I’ve made a synopsis of each speech, and included a few short quotes, except for Anne’s speech which I’ve added in full. This means quite a lot is lost- If you’d like to hear the speeches in full you can see the recording of the livestream here (it does skip in a couple of places) or listen to Mother Superior’s Twitterspace here (the recording starts at 50 seconds).
Joolz’s speech
Joolz started her speech immediately after the minute’s silence.
“Self-ID is now law in Germany…” she began, which was met with a chorus of ‘boo’s from the crowd.
She spoke of the absence of gatekeeping around the new ‘gender change’ laws and how they could be used to exploit vulnerable or confused children.
“Gender change applications from men made less than two months ‘prior to a national defence emergency’ will be put on hold. Which basically means no getting out of national service by saying you’re a girl, lads- and shows the government know the law is open to abuse.”
She spoke of the fines put in place as deterrents for those who dared to call a man a man, and how disclosure laws will not only make it easy for sex offenders to cover their tracks, but ensure that it is almost impossible to confront men in women’s spaces.
“Disclosure rules create a Catch22 which threatens all women’s single-sex spaces from lesbian club nights to public toilets.”
Joolz pointed out that Germany is not alone in authenticating self-ID and warned that many countries including Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal & Spain have similar laws.
“Just last week, up the road in Scotland, the SNP announced 24 genders that public bodies are now supposed to record in official documents.”
She warned that we have many politicians who would support such changes, and that we have already seen the result of England’s ‘flirtation with self-ID’ in the sex offenders being admitted to women’s prisons and refuges.
“Now is the time for women to speak up against self-ID and show our support for our German sisters who have had this terrible injustice thrust upon them without care or consultation.”
Alison’s Speech – Biology
Alison, who was a biology teacher for fifty years, began by explaining that Biology is an innate and universal thing.
Sexual reproduction, which almost all organisms use, involves male and female gametes.
“Homo Sapiens is a vertebrate and a mammal, whose sex is determined by chromosomes at fertilisation.”
Every schoolchild learns this in Year 9 Science- sex is determined by whether the X sperm or the Y sperm fuses with the egg.
“It’s only mammals and birds that have chromosomal sex and chromosomes sex is therefore seen in the nucleus of every nucleated cell… and male and female cells behave differently even in cell culture. It’s so fundamental, and unchangeable.”
Social constructs- such as religion, class and social roles- are different. They vary, because they’re based on ideas. Trans ideology attempts to claim that sex is an ‘idea’, when that is not the case, and this attempts to separate humans from the natural world. Such is the basis of the ‘transhumanism’ advocated for by Martine Rothblatt and others.
“I’m not submitting to this. I hated the bloody GRA in 2004,” concluded Alison. “I remember thinking, ‘you are lying on a historical document and I’m not having it! Thank you.”
“Repeal the GRA!” called someone in the crowd. Alison agreed, and a chant of “repeal the GRA!” was taken up as she stepped down.
Jan’s Speech
“Gender ideology undermines the Rule of Law, enriches Big Pharma and professional groups who should know better, and masks women’s oppression…” began Jan.
We all live in sexed bodies, and no laws can change that. ‘Identity’ just means ‘sameness’ in Latin, it’s a false concept like ‘royalty’ (in charge) or sanctity (specialness).
“Ask questions about these abstract nouns. Freedom for whom? Freedom from what? Don’t just accept that freedom is a great goal, look a little deeper.”
Janice remembers taking part in the lesbian Pride demo. in 2018. She was a humanist funeral celebrant at the time, and a board member of the British Humanist Association made a complaint about her, calling her participation ‘transphobic’.
At the Kenwood Ladies Pond Association, another ‘captured’ organisation, Jan ‘spent a year on the inside’. After being very active in KLPA, Jan tried to raise the issue of Self-ID at the pond, in a letter. Nobody was willing to discuss it with her and complaints were made about her.
Jan has noticed a strong link between countries where the sex trade is legalised, such as Germany, and those who are supporting Self-ID and surrogacy.
“It’s important to link what I call the ‘five pillars of patriarchy’ – porn, prostitution, sex clubs, trans… and surrogacy”.
She says the legalisation of the sex trade in England was fought off in 2008, mostly by people who worked in Job Centres saying, “That’s not a real job! We’re not recruiting women into that!” We should congratulate ourselves on that achievement.
Emphasising again that these issues are linked, she observed, “lf you can use a woman for one purpose and not treat her like a human being, you will use a woman for another purpose and not treat her like a human being.”
“German sisters,” she concluded, “We feel for you, we are with you and ‘wir stehen mit euch’.
Alison J’s speech – The Rights of the Child
Alison began by thanking ‘Lesst Frauen Sprechen’, in German, for the invitation to join the protest. Luckily for most of us, she switched to English after the first paragraph!
Alison called Self-ID a ‘conman’s charter’; a way for a man to lose his criminal record by changing his name and sex. She commented on the absurdity of the ‘yearly gender change’ clause, using examples of the regimes in Afghanistan and Iran to establish how men are fully aware of what a woman is when it benefits them to know, and quick to silence women who object to their plans. Germany, she said, is failing to protect women’s spaces and penalising those who speak the truth.
“How do the parents know what the baby’s “gender” is when the tiny child is too little even to undo the poppers on its babygro?” asked Alison, wryly reflecting on the fact that German Self-ID law allows parents to select their baby’s recorded ‘gender’.
She spoke of the fertile imaginations of children, of her own grandchild who spent a week only chirping liker a bird. Telling a child their behaviours mean they might be the opposite sex is harmful and can often be a homophobic response. Of children fed on gender ideology she said, “their imagination is being captured and ossified”.
Alison went on to speak about the CRC, the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Germany has produced a booklet based on the CRC, which states that children have a right to protection, “from physical and psychological harm or exploitation… so children and young people can grow up healthily and develop properly”. German Self-ID law is at odds with this document which promises to protect children against “all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation,” and from “exploitation of children for political activities, by the media, or for medical research.”
This cannot be balanced with legally transitioning children. Alison referred to the tragic case of twins Bruce and Brian Reimer. Bruce was ‘raised as a girl’ after his penis was removed following a botched circumcision. She called the experiment “a tragic experiment practised upon simple, ordinary parents and their unwitting children,” predicting that German Self-ID laws will expose more children to similar abuse by ‘gender experts’ and parents.
“This law will devastate parental rights to protect and safeguard their child and destroy the Bundesrepublik’s commitment to protect from exploitation and foster the precious rights of German children and young people.”
Alison predicted that the law will result in waves of litigation from “psychologically and physically damaged young people”.
Anne’s Speech (read by Mel) Freedom to tell the Truth
Anne has a vocal disability called Laryngeal Dystonia, so asked Mel to read her speech for her.
“Being heard at all, let alone being understood, is a daily struggle. As metaphors go, it seems a fitting one for today. In Germany women are no longer allowed to express themselves truly or freely. They cannot say that a man who wants to enter women’s safe spaces, is actually a man.
Women will have to lie and to deny the evidence of their own eyes, at a man’s say so. If he declares himself a woman, and they dare to disagree, they will be punished and fined.
What chance will artists, writers, elite women athletes have? You cannot flourish if you have to watch every word you say or write, You cannot lie and accomodate the preferences of gender-obsessed males.
What chance will children have, when gender-obsessed parents decide to deny the truth of a baby’s sex at birth? Or consent to gender grooming at the tender age of four?
German women will have to fight against this lie. What happens in Germany will spread through Europe. Words become meaningless if they are severed from reality. Women must keep telling the truth, and shouting the truth. We stand with our German sisters.
Maya’s Speech – Sex and the Law
George Orwell is supposed to have said: “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
“We live in a time of deceit… the deceit here today is the deceit of gender identity.”
Maya listed many things that a woman is not, including lipstick, dresses and long hair. Women are women, she said, because we have female bodies. It is this difference that leaves us vulnerable to sexual violence and sex discrimination.
“We are born female . And we will die female. Most of us will menstruate and worry about pregnancy. Many of us will become mothers. We are not men.”
Being a woman is not something the state bestows upon us, but something the state should acknowledge, recognising the different needs of men and women. The state should protect women, and the Self-ID Act does not do this. Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, wrote to the German Government that the Self-ID Act will endanger single-sex spaces, undermine data collection, harm children and restrict free speech.
The German government replied that the law has ‘no legal implications on the access to single sex spaces’.
The government in Scotland has made similar claims and will soon be facing the Supreme Court, arguing that the GRA changes your sex for the purposes of the Equality Act.
Sex Matters, said Maya, “will be there, supporting For Women Scotland and arguing against this… If the law is to protect women’s human rights, as it was designed to do, then sex must mean sex .”
Maya scoffed at the idea that a man in a dress, calling himself a woman, is somehow “eliminating harmful gender stereotypes” as the German government claims, and at the idea that encouraging them is somehow “beneficial for safeguarding the rights of all women and girls.”
She reminded us again of Orwell’s quote and concluded, “Keep telling the truth.”
Susie’s Speech – A lie & a betrayal
“A geographical accident of birth, decisions taken by long dead men, the kindness of strangers, these are all reasons why I am a British woman and not a German woman today,” began Susie.
She described Selbstbestimmungsgesetz as “a catastrophic decision for German women and girls’. Referencing the acknowledged high percentage of sex offenders among trans-identified male convicts, she questioned, “how long will we be able to trust the statistics we are being given? With male criminals being recorded as females, these uniquely male crimes are being associated with female criminality.”
Men claiming to be women are not only being placed in women’s prisons, and receiving cross-sex hormones while inside, but women are being penalised for speaking out against the system. Susie gave the example of Cathleen Quinn, a female prisoner in California, whose parole was cancelled after she spoke out about the predatory behaviour of a trans-identified man within her prison.
“There is a supreme cruelty at play here, which is unbelievably rebranded as diversity and equality.”
Susie praised the work of Lasst Frauen Sprechen in establishing that in Berlin alone, there are already 15 trans-identified men in the female estate. Police and justice systems around the world are prioritising men who say they are women over actual women. One of these men, who often disguised himself as a female police officer, is now in a women’s prison after being sentenced to 7 years for rape, aggravated robbery and extortion.
“For a lot of survivors, it starts with a lie.”
Women know men lie to them, they live lives ‘characterised by the knowledge that men aren’t trustworthy’.
Women need single sex spaces to recover from sexual trauma, and should not be locked up with predatory men.
“…for all the people colluding in this mass delusion, I beg you to just stop and listen to the voices of women. There is no longer any chance to say you didn’t know about the harms… we can only defeat this if enough of us push back. We need everyone who until now has stayed silent, to start using your voice, to shout that Self ID Harms and its about time that all Women Rise.”
Jean’s Speech – The importance of single-sex recovery space to women who have experienced domestic abuse
Jean spoke of the first refuges set up by women in the 70s to protect themselves and their children from violent men.
“When the violent men turned up to find those women, and they did, other women fought them on the doorstep.”
This, she said is “a different fight but with the same kind of man. This time he wears a dress. It is harder to keep him from the doorstep.”
Men use both physical and psychological violence to threaten women and impose themselves into women’s safe spaces and many women using single-sex services will be genuinely scared for their lives if they encounter a man.
“When women are in domestic abuse services, refuges or counselling, they are hypervigilant to the presence of men. A dress will not hide him. His presence will be felt in every fibre of her body, because she needs to stay alive, and she knows it is a man who could kill her.”
It is the ultimate cruelty to allow men lying about themselves, into the one space she might be able to protect herself, feel safe, grow strong, recover and carry on with her life and become a survivor not a victim.”
Jean said the German Self-ID laws will allow predatory men to ‘cross the doorstep like invited vampires‘ and warned that Self-ID must not be allowed to happen here.
” I’ve heard women saying this is not a war. Of course it’s a fucking war. Those women just aren’t soldiers. The rest of us …. will win the fucking war!”
Tara’s Summing up
Organiser Tara took the mic to wrap up procedings and thank everybody for coming. She thanked our German sisters for putting trust in us when we said we would support them, and said that we were proud to stand in solidarity alongside them. She thanked the other organisers, pointing out their hard work and planning. Everyone had played their part, from all the people who came along to the embassy today, to those watching at home or tweeting about the event.
“Thank you to every one of you from the bottom of my heart.”
There were three main reasons Tara felt it was important we met today. Firstly, to show solidarity with our German sisters. The second is that while it is 12.05 in Germany, the law has been passed, it is not too late for England. Tara emphasised the importance of making it known to governments, both nationally and locally, that we will not stand for Self-ID. She advised women to get involved in politics “it’s fun by the way, ask me more,” or at very least to communicate with their MP.
The third reason is that we fought back.
“We saw that terrible thing coming our way, hurtling towards us, threatening our very existence, threatening our women’s rights… and we fought for all the women around us… and we will continue to fight.”
The saying is, ‘well-behaved women seldom make history’. But we know who does make history- it is the mad women, the bad women and the dangerous women!”
Much applause met Tara’s summing up speech. We took hold of our songsheets and we sang at the top of our voices, before heading off to the pub with the feeling of a job well done.
I spoke to Tara after the event and she told me:
“The planning and delivery of the day of action was complex and shared among women from every political position (and none) and from every women’s group (and none). Everyone was welcome, no-one was excluded and the group was authentically, purely, a grassroots apolitical collection of women, standing side-by-side.”
Quite an achievement!
“We have a duty to women around the world,” she added, “from Afghanistan and Iran, to Germany, Ireland and the US, to stand up against this dreadful, dangerous removal of women’s single-sex spaces along with the safety, privacy and dignity that is lost.”
A Global Protest
Women who could not make the action in their own country but wanted to show their support posted photos of themselves holding signs with the hashtag #SelfIDHarms and #WomenRise. Those in countries where Self-ID is not established added, ‘it’s not too late for us’. Even JKR joined in, posting a selfie taken in the back of a taxi.
The protests outside consulates and Embassies moved like a wave around the world, each country protesting at 12.05 their own time, starting with New Zealand. Women gathered in the streets, delivered letters to ambassadors, laid wreaths, chanted and sang. Some groups consisted of just three or four women, others consisted of several hundred.
The protest in Berlin
I wasn’t at the protest in Berlin (sadly, I don’t have a time turner) but you can read more about the work of Lasst Frauen Sprechen here. You can read Helen Joyce’s speech in Berlin here and see the video of her speaking here.
You can view the Lasst Frauen Sprechen Global Feminist Protest map, showing the location of all the protests around the world, and zoom in and out to get a closer view, here.
I asked Lasst Frauen Sprechen for a quote about the protests and this is what they said:
“At our rally in Berlin, together with many women from academia, including Helen Joyce and Bev Jackson, we have proclaimed our opposition to the so-called “Self-Determination Act” loud and clear, because it harms women and girls and deprives them of their rights.
Around 250 people took part in the demonstration in Berlin, among them women from other countries who joined us there. For the first time, we were also widely reported in the media…
At our demonstration we remembered all our supporters several times and read out the names of the cities involved in solidarity actions. We hope that we can continue to use this concentrated power of women’s solidarity to maintain women’s rights or to fight for them anew. The spark of solidarity has flown from New Zealand across the globe, igniting the fire of sisterhood in numerous countries. We will never let it go out again! Thank you, dear sisters, for this unforgettable and unique experience! This project is not over – this project has only just begun!”
Want to know more?
You can view ‘Sisters are Watching You’, Laast Frauen Sprechen’s record of the global protest, here.
You can hear organiser Rone Duwe’s speech on the history of Self-ID law, at Women’s Declaration International question time, here.
You can view WDI’s video report on the day here.
The Twelve0Five recording of the livestream from the German Embassy in London can be viewed on youTube, here. It skips in a couple of places during the speeches, but it’s a great video record of the protest.
The Twitter space audio recording of the speeches at the London protest is here. (it takes a few minutes to get going properly but doesn’t skip)
You can read the US Library of Congress report on the Self-ID Act, here.
All photos in this article are either shown within their featured tweets, or created from images in the YouTube livestream
Thanks for your extensive documentation, Lily, your support was very much appreciated over here! Female solidarity rocks!
Fantastic piece as usual! 👏👏👏
Pingback: Dépasser les limites | TRADFEM