Germany Struggles with Its Self-Identification Law: AfD Wants to Repeal It, CDU Seeks a Middle Ground

Germany is facing a new political battle over the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz (SBGG), the self-identification law that has been in force since 1 November 2024. After the AfD's election victory in the 2026 Saxony-Anhalt state elections, AfD parliamentarians submitted motions to fully repeal the law. At the same time, proposals for a middle path are circulating within the CDU: not abolishing the law, but tightening it. A recent essay on Genspect, written by a former German Green Party member, lays bare the political fault lines.

What the law actually does

The Selbstbestimmungsgesetz replaced the old, far more cumbersome Transsexuellengesetz in 2024. Since then, a declaration at the civil registry office is enough to change one's legal sex registration and first name — without a medical examination, psychological diagnosis or judicial review. Our dossier at zelfidentificatie.nl places this German route alongside those of Spain and the Netherlands: all three chose a pure self-declaration model, but with different age limits and waiting periods.

The AfD's claims, and what can be verified

The Genspect essay cites AfD motions calling for the restoration of protections for minors, people with mental-health vulnerabilities and women's spaces, plus an immediate moratorium on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors. That last point is separate from the SBGG itself — the self-identification law governs the legal sex registration of adults and young people aged 14 and up (with a parent's consent), not access to medical transition care, which in Germany runs through separate guidelines. Reading the law shows that the AfD is combining two separate issues — legal registration and medical care — into a single motion. That is a political choice, not a reflection of what the law actually regulates.

What is verifiable is that the law allows the registration to be changed annually without further formalities, and that critics — including the essay itself — point to the absence of a threshold that should structurally prevent abuse of women's spaces. The essay provides no figures on how often that actually happens; such figures are also still lacking from the public German debate.

A political cordon sanitaire, and the question of who is still listening

The essay also describes the "Brandmauer", the German cordon sanitaire by which established parties categorically rule out cooperation with the AfD. The author — himself a former Green Party member and now a spokesperson for the parent association Transteens-Sorge-Berechtigt — experienced this firsthand: in 2019 he was instructed not to shake hands with AfD council members, contrary to custom in German municipal councils. His point: this exclusion of the AfD as a discussion partner also makes it harder for established parties to openly acknowledge a substantively weak part of their own law — the absence of an age limit and a due-diligence test — for fear that such acknowledgement will be interpreted as support for the AfD.

This mechanism deserves a critical caveat: it is the author's analysis, not an established fact. Political exclusion of a party says nothing about the merits of its specific legislative proposals, and conversely, agreeing with one point made by a party says nothing about agreeing with the rest of its platform. Our editorial team therefore takes no political position on the AfD as a party — the criticism is aimed solely at the content of the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz.

The CDU compromise: tightening instead of abolishing

More interesting for the Dutch reader is the alternative sketched in the essay from within the CDU: raising the age limit to 25, introducing mandatory medical or psychological counselling, and more explicitly enshrining the protection of women's spaces — without scrapping the law as a whole. That is a different approach from the full repeal the AfD wants, and it is in line with developments elsewhere in Europe: our page on gender policy by country shows that countries such as Sweden and Finland have themselves pulled back from permissive self-identification and treatment models, without abolishing them entirely.

Germany has so far followed a different line from its Scandinavian neighbours. Our earlier article on UN criticism from German justice ministers of the SBGG already described internal doubts within the German rule-of-law system itself about the precision of the law. The AfD motions and the CDU compromise are a new, political episode in that same discussion — not the beginning of it.

What this means for the debate

The German example shows that a self-identification law without an age limit, waiting period or due-diligence test can become a political flashpoint once practice falls short of expectations — even in a country where such a law was adopted with broad support. For the Dutch debate on comparable legislation, that is a relevant fact: not because the German political constellation can be transferred one-to-one, but because the technical weaknesses being identified — no age limit, no test, no figures on abuse — are precisely the points also under discussion in the Dutch Transgender Act.

Sources

David Allison, "Germany: A Glimmer of Hope for Sex Realists?", Genspect, 28 September 2026. genspect.org/germany-a-glimmer-of-hope-for-sex-realists

Genderinfo.nl, "German justice ministers voice UN criticism of the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz", 2026. genderinfo.nl/artikelen/duitse-justitieministers-vn-kritiek-selbstbestimmungsgesetz-2026

Zelfidentificatie.nl, "Article 1:28 BW — what it says, what it doesn't" (comparison with the German SBGG). zelfidentificatie.nl/artikel-1-28-bw