Lawmaker is Germany’s first transgender MP
BERLIN: Lawmakers returning to the Bavarian regional parliament after elections three months ago will find a transgender woman colleague, Tessa Ganserer, on the benches where Markus Ganserer (pic) previously sat.
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.
Just a few weeks after coming out on social media to a burst of publicity, the 41-year-old made a first appearance before the press yesterday to discuss her change of identity.
Long a laggard on social issues, some abrupt changes have taken place in Germany in recent years.
Parliament legislated last month for a third gender on birth certificates after a Constitutional Court decision that the documents must respect intersex people.
And in summer 2017, MPs pushed through gay marriage after Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would not whip her party on the subject.
“I am a woman with every fibre of my body and now Madam regional MP as well,” Ganserer posted on her Facebook account in early January, announcing her intention to sit in parliament as a woman.
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.
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.”