"Action alliance Alex" Put the Youth Welfare Authorities in their place - Stop Gender Normalisation

This is an international call-up by a Berlin, Germany solidarity action group which is preparing a rally to be held in front of the youth administration responsible here to support a 12 year old child
Please support us with petitions & protest-rallies/demonstrations in front of any German offical institution or representation in your City. Best on 18.04. at 2PM GMT, best in front of any German Embassy or Goethe Institute etc.

Thanx for your support!

Background:

Alex is 12 and lives as a girl – contrary to the gender assigned at birth. Her mother supports her in living in the felt gender. However, the father cannot accept Alex' life as a girl and claims that the mother only talked the child into everything. In the course of the custody battle between the parents, the right to decide on health care was taken away from Alex' mother by the youth welfare department (Jugendamt) and assigned to an assistant care nurse. This nurse is pursuing an interest to force Alex into the gender registered at birth – which does not function and can only traumatise people !

Recently the court decided once more against the mother and the child. In the decision the mother was accused - among other things - of being unwilling to co-operate with the assistant care nurse as well as of having talked the child into the gender identity. The court rejected the request for supplementary expert reports in favour of the mother.

Trans* is an expression for people who either live contrary to the gender assigned at birth or who live beyond the 2-sex system. Alex could be classified according to current medical and legal definitions as transsexual.

On 18th April 2012 at 2 PM we will be paying the Jugendamt Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Berlin, a visit.at
Bezirksamt Steglitz-Zehlendorf von Berlin
Kirchstr. 1/3
14163 Berlin
Tel. (030) 90299-0
http://www.berlin.de/ba- steglitz-zehlendorf/

Originally Alex' mother had turned to the youth welfare department hoping for support - instead, she and her daughter now experience threats and reprimands. The present situation is a strain for Alex - the authorities and medicine must stop this dictation!

We call on the youth welfare department to ensure that Alex remains with her mother! We demand competent and self-elective care, in addition to support for the mother!

The assigned nurse must be sacked!

In addition, we demand that the court returns the right to decide on Alex' health care to the mother!

Stop the dictation by doctors and authorities!
To live your own gender is a right – not an illness!

By the way: The youth welfare department and the nurse are offending against the standards of the Berlin senate which demands freedom from discrimination, and respect for diversity in dealing with trans* people, queers, lesbians and gays. Moreover, this behaviour also contradicts the international conventions on the rights of children, which Germany has cosigned.

In Germany, people are forced to undergo a one-year real-life test, to submit to psychiatric treatment and to get several certificates at their own expense, before they can assert their wish for a forename change to match their own gender or for medical treatment. The registration of the new forename and personal status depends on the approval of the court and the Ministry of the Interior. This procedure can take several years and cost the affected person several thousand Euros. The person's wishes may also be rejected for a variety of reasons.

The basis for the forename and personal status changes is the „Transsexuellengesetz“ (TSG, Transsexuals Law) of 1980. The Federal Constitutional Court struck passages of the TSG several times in the recent past because of their unconstitutionality.

The Council of Europe has also repeatedly warned the Federal Governments to respect the human rights of transsexuals in Germany and to make meaningful improvements. The Red / Green Federal Government at that time also recognised this in a declaration on the “situation of transsexuals in Germany”, but itself, however, has refused to improve it, as does the following government.

International catalogues of diseases (the ICD and the DSM), which support such compulsory treatment and pathologisation of trans* people with diagnoses such as "Gender Identity Disorders", are the guidelines used by the judicial, as well as medical and psychiatric systems. An international campaign has for many years demanded the cancellation of the category "Gender Identity Disorders" from the international catalogues of diseases as well as the guarantee of self-elected medical care.

Stopp the pathologisation and psychiatrisation of children, youngsters and adults who do not correspond to the gender which was fixed in their birth certificate!

IMMEDIATE END TO GUARDIANSHIP

IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL OF THE INCOMPETENT AND INTERFERING YOUTH WELFAREDEPARTMENT NURSE!

stop forced psychiatrisation immediately!

for the right to free personality development!

for self-elected medical care!- for children, youth and adults-!

stop the pathologisation of trans* people!

to live your own gender is surely not an illness!

Aktionsbündnis ALEX(Action alliance Alex)


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