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| Tessa Ganserer, member of the Bavarian state parliament, and formerly known as Markus Ganserer, is believed to be the first transgender person in Germany to hold a regional or national MP's seat, or to change their gender while in office (AFP Photo/Christof STACHE) |
Munich (Germany) (AFP) - Transgender woman Tessa Ganserer will make history in Germany when she takes up her seat in the Bavarian regional parliament next week, three months after winning reelection as Markus Ganserer.
Giving her
maiden press conference as a woman, the nation's first transgender lawmaker
used the opportunity to urge Germany to make it easier for people to legally
change their gender.
First
elected in 2013, the Greens party representative served one term using her
birth name Markus, sporting a light beard and glasses with a suit.
She came
out a few weeks ago, announcing that she will live and work as a woman from now
on, and appeared at Monday's Munich press conference in a blonde wig, make-up
and dark jacket.
"Gender
identity is a human right," Ganserer told reporters, urging an update to
the more than 30-year-old law on transgender people.
"In
future it should be possible for a person to apply to change their gender
recorded at birth" with the authorities, she said.
At present
people must secure backing from two doctors to officially change gender.
Ganserer is
believed to be the first transgender person in Germany to hold a regional or
national MP's seat, or to change their gender while in office.
Her call
for easier recognition of transgender people, cultural change among public
servants and action against homophobia and transphobia comes after a series of
abrupt changes for Germany -- long a laggard on social issues.
Parliament
legislated last month for a third gender on birth certificates after a
Constitutional Court decision that the documents must acknowledge intersex
people.
And in
2017, MPs pushed through gay marriage after Chancellor Angela Merkel said she
would allow members of her party to vote with their conscience.
While
Ganserer was reelected to her Bavarian parliament seat, in the United States
Democratic Party candidate Christine Hallquist recently failed in her bid to
become the first transgender woman governor in Vermont.
'Not for
fun
"I am
not doing this for fun -- I didn't choose to be a woman," Ganserer said
Monday.
Just a few
weeks ago, she had said both Markus and Tessa remained a part of her.
But from
now on she hopes to live as a female politician, wife and mother of two children.
While
Bavaria is a strongly conservative and mostly Catholic region, the president of
the regional parliament Ilse Aigner of the Christian Social Union (CSU) backed
the change.
"Mrs
Ganserer has taken a very brave and highly personal decision," Aigner said
last week.
The CSU
usually takes very conservative positions on social questions and opposed the
federal gay marriage law.
"Our
male colleague is becoming a female colleague, that should not be a problem in
this house," Aigner said in a public statement after speaking with
Ganserer.
"A
person's personality is always more important than their gender."
At the
first plenary session of the year from January 23, the Greens party MP will be
registered as a woman.
'Getting
used to it'
Among
fellow MPs, "many definitely still have to get used to it," Aigner
said.
One member
of the pro-business FDP cried, "What are you playing at here? A drag
queen?" when he first saw Ganserer in a long blonde wig and make-up in the
Munich chamber, daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reported.
While she
has made little public comment, she told the paper that she
"discovered" herself as a woman around 10 years ago when looking in
the mirror wearing a dress.
Since then,
she has picked her way through different roles: as a man, father, husband,
woman, wife, and mother.
Now, her
doubts are so far gone that she has told her sons, 11 and 6, that "from
now on I will always be like this".
"Children
don't have prejudices. If you present the world to them in a friendly way, they
will accept it as it is," Ganserer said.
She doesn't
plan to undergo any medical procedures, but to mark the definitive arrival of
Tessa, Ganserer took a major step: she packed all her ties, shirts and suit
jackets into bags and gave them away.
It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”
Related Article:
"The Akashic Circle" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)
“… Gender Switching
Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."
Old souls, let me tell you something. If you are old enough, and many of you are, you have been everything. Do you hear me? All of you. You have been both genders. All of you have been what I will call between genders, and that means that all of you have had gender switches. Do you know what happens when it's time for you to switch a gender? We have discussed it before. You'll have dozens of lifetimes as the same gender. You're used to it. It's comfortable. You cannot conceive of being anything else, yet now it's time to change. It takes approximately three lifetimes for you to get used to it, and in those three lifetimes, you will have what I call "gender confusion."
It isn't confusion at all. It's absolutely normal, yet society often will see it as abnormal. I'm sitting here telling you you've all been through it. All of you. That's what old souls do. It's part of the system. …”
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