Transgender rights in Germany

[2] The law initially required transgender people to undergo sex-reassignment surgery in order to have key identity documents changed.

[3] The German government has pledged to replace the Transsexuellengesetz with the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz ("Self-determination law"), which would remove the financial and bureaucratic hurdles necessary for legal gender and name changes.

In 1982, the requirement that a candidate be 25 years of age was found in violation of the equality clause of the German Constitution (Art.

[15] In January 2011, the court declared the criteria for gender change requiring gender-affirming surgery and sterilization or infertility unconstitutional.

Legal guardians should be there to protect vulnerable people from things like giving away their possessions, but not to prevent them from coming out as trans, the association Queer Handicap argued.

[25] In November 2017, the Bundesverfassungsgericht ("Federal Constitutional Court") ruled that civil status law must allow a third gender option.

[27] The process for intersex people to obtain different gender markers has been regulated in § 45b of the Personenstandsgesetz ("Law of Civil Status").

It bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics in employment and the provision of goods and services.

Some states have laws banning all forms of discrimination in their constitutions (Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Saarland and Thuringia).

Later that year, the government pledged to loosen restrictions on legal name changes and to compensate transgender people who were sterilized against their will.