Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on People who menstruate.
(Are we quite sure âmenstruateâ shouldnât be âpeoplestruateâ? Have we researched it?)
You jest, but I recently saw a campaign poster for the city state of Bremen with the Social Democrats campaigning âfĂźr Bremen und Brewomenâ. Iâm sure it wonât be long before the party is reeducated to add more nonsense to the slogan. Perhaps in the next election theyâll be âfĂźr Bremenschenâ, which would at least be a fully German pun (unless of course they fear being seen as right-wing extremists for using German wordplay in Germany).
In the meantime, you can rest assured that in Germany, weâre allowed to use the word âwomanâ â indeed we may soon be required to, as long as the âwomanâ in question is a biological male who feels he really is a woman on the inside and asserts his hurt feelings in a court of law. A court in Frankfurt recently decided to forbid the host of a blog from allowing a specific trans women to be called a man with no qualifications in the articles he publishes. The linked story is in German and I cannot find any English sources whoâve covered it yet, but I will provide a summary:
Writer Judith Sevinc Basad published a piece discussing the trans journalist Janka Kluge in which the former referred to the latter first as a âtrans womanâ, then a âbiological manâ, and lastly without qualification as a man. Kluge took the blogâs parent company, Rome Media GmbH, to court in order to force that parent company to remove the offensive âmisgenderingâ â and though the linked article does not specify potential remedial actions, I have seen rumours that a refusal to comply could come with a punishment of 250 thousand Euros and/or six months imprisonment for the owner of the company. The case is not over, thankfully, and Rome Media are appealing the decisionâŚbut if they lose, this could well be the beginning of a lot of nonsense in this country.
The plaintiffâs lawyer is hopeful. He (I am assuming, based on his name and the picture at the bottom of his own summary of his victory) says that ââŚthough the state court made a decision in this specific case, the decision will nevertheless have a signalling effect.â
The linked article has some other typical German-isms worth mentioning, such as hiding the fact that the actual author of the piece is a liberal feminist with a Turkish background while taking pains to point out that the head of Rome Media was the former chief editor of the widely-publicized Bild magazine and also by the way did you know he has a YouTube channel entirely unrelated to this at all but it has been deemed âright-populistâ. (Though to be fair, Basadâs ethnic background is eminently inferrable from her nameâŚon the other hand, the whole issue is about a certain totalitarian refusal to make eminent inferences in the first place.)
Germany has always had a different relationship to freedom of speech (and to freedom in general) than the English-speaking world. The inequality doesnât always go in one direction, either â for example, German trespass law is much more lenient than American or Canadian law, with hikers being able to walk through unfenced fields and orchards and woodlands without having to give a thought to whether the land is public or private, as long as they donât have to manipulate a barrier and as long as they donât damage anything. (If a hiker does damage something, like a row of crops, heâll be expected to reimburse the farmer but wonât face criminal penalties unless he refuses.)
But Germany doesnât have âfree speechâ as Americans know it. We have âfreedom of thoughtâ, and this freedom (as with most freedoms guaranteed with the Basic Law) has escape-hatch provisions that tend to render it less and less effective over time. To be specific, Article 5 of the German Basic Law guarantees that:
âEveryone has the right to freely express and to distribute his opinions in word, in writing, and in images; and to educate himself from generally accessible sources without hindrance. The freedom of the press and the freedom to report through the airwaves and via film are guaranteed. Censorship will not occur.â
That sounds great! In theory it is even more comprehensive than the First Amendment (noting that Article 4 of the Basic Law also covers religious freedom). But, as with most articles, there is a catch. This catch reads âThese rights find their limits in the regulations of the general laws, in the legal provisions for the protection of children, and in the right of personal honour.â That means that any law limiting the above-enumerated freedoms can be justified by just about anything as long as the law is generally applicable, or as long as it can be said to protect children or the âright to personal honourâ. (There is a further exception to this exception, wherein art and science and research and teaching are affirmed to be âfreeâ, but in the same clause there is a double-bluff exception that âthe freedom of teaching does not absolve [one] from adhering to the constitutionâ.)
The plaintiffâs lawyer says âNobody should have to accept being assigned to the wrong genderâ, and further that âmisgendering is a grievous encroachment into general personal rights, and can have legal consequencesâ. During the proceedings, the lawyer claimed that several studies proved negative outcomes from being âmisgenderedâ. And while the linked article does not mention what âlegal consequencesâ Rome Media will face should it lose its appeal and refuse to abide by the censorship the Frankfurt court has laid down (despite the German Basic Law promising no censorship will take place), the company could face hundreds of thousands of Euros in fines and its owner may face an actual prison term.
This is all happening before Germany passes its upcoming self-ID law, which the government may or may not actually be competent enough to do; that law would, if passed with the provisions its supporters insist upon, explicitly add âmisgenderingâ to the catalogue of civil offenses for which individual citizens can be fined. It would also allow children as young as fourteen years old to change their registered sex once per year and to pursue publicly-funded âgender medicineâ without the approval, or even the knowledge, of their parents.
In short, Germany is on the cusp of instantiating the gender cult as an official state religion, with compulsory adherence and legal penalties for heresy and blasphemy. My leftist friends in Berlin assure me this country is far too conservative for such a thing to come to pass, and it is true that the average German has no idea this is even happening, but the elites have very nearly made it a fait accompli. I am very curious what will happen next.