Queer representative Lehmann: “Being able to be different without fear”

Germany’s first queer officer has been in office for a year. In an interview with tagesschau.de Sven Lehmann talks about visible successes, outdated family law – and why everything takes so long.

tagesschau.de: When she took office, some people asked themselves: Why this post? Now after a year in office, what can you show as proof of employment?

Sven Lehmann: Compared to previous federal governments, there is finally a visible policy for the acceptance of LGBTIQ*, i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intergender – in short: queer people. The biggest milestone was certainly that the federal government decided on a “queer living” action plan for the first time. It is intended to advance the acceptance and protection of sexual and gender diversity. This is new because queer politics is becoming a cross-cutting task for all ministries. I’m very proud of it because it hasn’t existed before.

There are other early successes as well. Shortly before the turn of the year, we passed a draft law in the federal government that would expressly include gender-specific motives and those directed against sexual orientation as further examples of inhuman motives in the penal laws on hate crime.

Rainbow families are discriminated against

tagesschau.de: The website of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs lists modernizing family law as an important goal of your office. So far it has remained an announcement. When is something coming?

Lehmann: It’s long overdue for something to finally happen there this year. Current descent and family laws discriminate against rainbow families, especially lesbian mothers and their children. According to the law, if a child is born into a marriage with two women, it has only one parent with custody. The other parent, the co-mother, has to adopt. This is very tedious and stressful, with the most intimate questions about the ability to raise children. Our aim is to put these mothers on an equal footing with heterosexual married couples and thus to give the children legal protection. I wish we were further along.

But it is crucial that Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann announced the draft law for this year. Time is running out. As a queer commissioner, I can apply pressure and bring in expertise, but I cannot initiate my own bills. For this I am dependent on the initiative of the ministers.

Construction site self-determination law

tagesschau.de: Even with the Self-Determination Act, only the cornerstones have been set so far. There are numerous people in the LGBTIQ* community who are impatiently waiting. What’s the problem?

Lehmann: Every day I get a lot of questions about the current status of the planned self-determination law, which is supposed to replace the transsexual law. I can understand that very well, because the level of suffering is high. People whose gender identity does not correspond to the gender at birth should be able to correct their gender entry more easily in the future without the compulsory psychiatric reports that are currently still required. Transgender people in particular are discriminated against every day, even when they go to the authorities, with health insurance companies, when they are checked on the road, if they have not yet been able to change their documents. Almost everywhere there is an unwanted coming out.

I would have also wished that the draft law had already been presented. The work on the draft is taking a little longer than planned because of some detailed questions. But I’m sure that the lead ministries of family and justice will publish the draft law early this year and then initiate the departmental vote and association hearing. 2023 will be the year in which we finally pass the Self-Determination Act.

tagesschau.de: There is some strong criticism of the key points of the Self-Determination Act: women fear that they are no longer safe in changing rooms or public toilets. So lose protection if a man can easily change his gender entry in the passport in the future. Why do you think this fear is so absurd?

Lehmann: Because the experiences of all countries that already have self-determination laws do not show that at all. Unfortunately, we have a problem with violence in this society, especially with violence against women. This violence is mainly domestic violence and violence in contexts other than on the street. Women’s Minister Lisa Paus is working intensively on measures to expand shelters such as women’s shelters.

Personally, I cannot understand at all that some are now acting as if transgender people are the problem. They are held responsible for violence and assaults, although they are victims themselves and are exposed to massive discrimination in everyday life. That scares me a lot. I appeal that we counteract violence in society as a whole and ensure more prevention and protective spaces without playing one group off against the other.

Protection status for queer people in the Basic Law is missing

tagesschau.de: The “Queer Living” action plan calls for a ban on discrimination against queer people to be anchored in the Basic Law. How exactly should such a ban be implemented?

Lehmann: We have Article 3 in our Basic Law: the ban on discrimination based on certain characteristics such as gender, origin or belief. But what is missing is the feature of sexual identity. Queer people are the last group persecuted by the Nazis who do not yet have an explicit protective status in the Basic Law.

In its current form, Article 3 could not prevent the criminal prosecution of homosexual and bisexual men under the old criminal law paragraph 175. Or the withdrawal of custody from lesbian mothers.

Explicit constitutional protection is important, also so that certain achievements, such as marriage for all, cannot be reversed. We need a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and Bundesrat to amend the Basic Law. Intensive talks are currently underway with a view to making a start on this during this legislative period.

“Germany must be among the top 5 in Europe”

tagesschau.de: You still have a good two and a half years of legislation ahead of you. What do you wish: that after your term of office there will no longer be a need for a queer commissioner, or that the commissioner will have to exist for a while longer?

Lehmann: I would like Germany to become a pioneer in Europe when it comes to accepting and acknowledging diversity. We are currently only in the middle when it comes to the rights of queer people. With ILGA Europe there is a large international organization that publishes an index every year. In the ranking behind us are almost only Eastern European countries. This is bad news after 16 years of CDU/CSU-led government. Germany must be among the top 5 in Europe.

I want queer people to be a natural part of our society. I want everyone to be able to be different without fear. I believe that this is a process and that the office in the federal government will therefore be necessary for a long time. But I hope that in the next two and a half years we will make progress on the big projects and work our way forward internationally in the fight against discrimination.