From Private Wrongs to Public Rights: The Politics of Intersex Activism in the Merkel Era

Abstract

During the Merkel era, Germany moved from a traditional gender binary to a gender triad by introducing a third sex category. Why did a nation that has historically lagged on gender issues become the first country in Europe to take this extraordinary step? This article sheds light on changing LGBTQI discourses in Germany and the successful politicization of intersex concerns. Initial reform was prompted by transnational social activism at the UN and top-down international pressure, while the second phase was dominated by competition among German domestic parties and the courts. I process-trace policy-making throughout the Merkel era to show how claims by intersex activists morphed from the private to the public sphere. Once the issue gained visibility, most political actors expressed support for social movement claims for physical inviolability framed as human rights. Semi-autonomous medical authorities resisted change, however, and maintained a correction paradigm that discursively came to be perceived as a ‘private wrong’. As a result, the state's legal recognition of a third sex preceded the ban of invasive medical procedures on intersex children. Recent far right anti-gender discourses have challenged these achievements and tried to limit the visibility of and broader accessibility to a third sex category.

Acknowledgment

I like to thank the anonymous reviewers, the special issue editors, Petra Ahrens, Phillip Ayoub, and Sabine Lang, and my research assistant, Mikaela Hong, for their feed-back and insights.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Angelika von Wahl

Angelika von Wahl is John L. '67 and Jean A. Hatfield Professor of International Affairs and Chair of the International Affairs Program at Lafayette College. Her research interests focus on comparative and international women’s and gender policy in Germany and the European Union (such as “The EU as a Gender Equality Regime: A Core Research Concept,” Routledge Handbook of Gender and the European Union, eds. Gabi Abels, Andrea Kriszan, Heather McRae and Anna van der Vleuten, 2021). She has published on labor market, family, social welfare, and gender equality policies, authored several monographs, and published articles in Social Politics, West European Politics, German Politics, and German Politics & Society among others. Currently she is working on a monograph on Germany's "third gender" law and the international diffusion of intersex rights. Recent research on transnational intersex social mobilization were published as “From Object to Subject: Intersex Activism and the Rise and Fall of the Gender Binary in Germany,” Social Politics, 2019 and “Lessons on Opportunity Hoarding and Gender Binarism: Building an Alliance of Women’s, Trans, and Intersex Movements,” European Journal of Gender and Politics, 2021.