November 2024
Janet - Women's Declaration International NZ - Global Protest Against Sex Self-ID - New Zealand
Kia ora everyone,
I am Janet, the New Zealand Country Contact for Women's Declaration International.
The Women's Declaration, which has been signed by over 38,600 people, re-affirms the sex-based rights of women and girls, which are guaranteed by the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We oppose all forms of discrimination against women and girls that result from replacing "sex" with "gender identity" in law, policy, and social practice.
We are very concerned that Germany's Self ID Act, the Gender Self Determination Act (SBGG) is violating the human rights of women and girls which are laid out in international law, in particular, CEDAW, and the Istanbul Convention against Violence Against Women.
CEDAW opposes discrimination based on sex. The rights of women in CEDAW are sex- based. These rights are being undermined by concepts of gender coming into law, such as in Sex Self ID legislation.
Today, in Germany, an extreme piece of Sex Self ID legislation, constituting a very serious attack on women's rights, comes into force. This is a setback for women, in Germany and internationally. It reflects similar attacks on women's rights around the world including in Australia and New Zealand.
Recently New South Wales became the last state in Australia to introduce Sex Self ID.
Some states in Australia have draconian laws equalling the severity of the German law, making it impossible for women to gather in same sex spaces, or to tell the truth about biological sex.
The German law is worse than New Zealand's Sex Self ID law, the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 2021; which at least recognises that the Birth Certificate can no longer be relied upon as evidence of someone's sex.
The German law is so extreme that parents can put whatever gender they like on the birth certificate for a child from birth up to five years of age. I can't begin to imagine the psychological harm that this could cause. A person can be fined 10,000 Euro for disclosing what somebody's biological sex is. If a person's sex or original name cannot be disclosed, criminals and sex offenders will be able to disguise their identities, putting women and children at risk .
Germany has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women “CEDAW“, and the “Istanbul Convention“ on the protection of women from sex-based violence; and it has protections for women in its constitution.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls - Reem Alsalem - sent a 17-page letter to the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, addressed to the foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in which she described her great concerns about the human rights threat to girls and women posed by the Self-ID Act, demanding statements as to how Germany would continue to guarantee the rights and safety of women and girls. Reem Alsalem also reminded the German Federal Government of its obligations under international human rights law to protect children, girls and women based on sex.
In particular, Reem Alsalem noted the following rights and threats to these rights:
1. The right to be free from discrimination and violence
2. Increased risks of violence against women and associated trauma
3. Undermining single sex spaces for females
4. Lack of trauma-informed approach for women and girls who are victims/survivors of
violence
5. The obligation to collect sex -based data in statistics
6. The negative impact on women's and girl's highest standards of mental and physical
health. She particularly noted the risks of puberty blockers for children, as outlined in the Cass report
7. The lack of safeguards for the best interests of the child, as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the child, particularly concerning girls
8. The risks to freedom of expression, religious freedom, and the prevention of violence, due to the ban on disclosure
Women are being prevented from talking about men's violence and identifying male sex offenders.
Reem Alsalem concludes by expressing her great concern about the negative consequences that the new law would have on the rights of women and girls. She reminded the Federal Government that, as a State party to CEDAW, it will be held accountable if it does not take all appropriate measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute, punish and provide redress for acts or omissions by State and non-state actors that lead to gender-based violence against women. This is because violence against women is recognized as discrimination against women.
She particularly noted the risks of violence towards women prisoners, who are forced to share cells with male inmates.
Violence against women is also inherent in prostitution, which has been legal in Germany for 20 years.
The Special Rapporteur asked the German government to explain what steps it would take to address the noted concerns. She received a very short meaningless reply which evaded all of the questions.
Reem Alsalem also noted how the word "Geshclecht" in the German Self-Determination Act is understood to refer to both sex and gender, as German law does not make a distinction between them and uses the same word to denote both. She says this prevents a sensitive approach to issues pertaining to both sex and to gender.
United Nations law, until recently, has always recognised that sex is about biological sex, whereas gender is about the social constructs and expectations which reinforce a hierarchy of men over women. CEDAW calls for the elimination of these sex-based stereotypes.
We have seen the conflation of sex and gender happening in other countries too, where the word gender has often been used as a polite term for sex, and then eventually came to replace sex altogether, thereby eroding the recognition of the reality of sex, and of sex-based rights.
German women have been speaking out against this harmful and misogynist piece of legislation, but their voices have been ignored by the Government. Instead the Government have only paid attention to co-opted women's and human rights organisations who have supported it. We see this same pattern happening in New Zealand.
Undeterred, the group Lasst Frauen Sprechen has called for international solidarity,
and for us all to gather today at German embassies around the world, to protest at this threat to us all!
Ina Wagener, the founder of Lasst Frauen Sprechen said on a Women's Declaration International webinar in September, "We want the so-called gender identity to be removed from all laws, because Self-ID harms women's rights. They should be removed from the EU, UN and laws in all our countries." And "Let's protest together all over the world against the arrogance and hypocrisy of misogynist politics on November 1, starting at 12.05!
And that is what we are doing! And here we all are!
And now, I'd like to read out a message of solidarity from Ina to all of us who are here today:
Dear sisters! I would like to tell you how the idea for this international campaign came about. It was born out of the anger at the politicians that I have developed in 3 years of demos against Self-ID. The politicians don't hear us? Are we too quiet? Then we should unite our voices and send a call to the whole world! In this case, united women's voices are directed at the German politicians who have passed one of the worst self-ID laws to protect the lie that sex can be changed. But politicians in other countries around the world also act as if they don't know what a woman is and abolish women's rights. So I came up with the idea of asking women in other countries if they would demonstrate in front of the German embassies. I thought, hopefully there will be 3-5 crazy women who will do something in 1-3 countries. And we made a great discovery - the world is full of crazy women! We have solidarity support from 22 countries and in some countries several protests have been announced! This is an example of women's power that inspires us all!
We are real. We are the grassroots.
We can only rely on ourselves, on women at grassroots level. Because the big organizations like UN Women, which were once supposed to protect us women, have betrayed us. They have betrayed our trust and even sold our word “woman” and smuggled this damn gender identity into our protective laws behind our backs. That's why grassroots women are now taking over! Women rise, because self-ID harms all women and girls around the world!
Dear sisters in New Zealand, we are endlessly grateful to you and are thinking of you at our rally! You are the first on the planet today, November 1st, to take this action! The spark of this women's solidarity will fly from you across the planet today and inspire women from country to country!
Thank you for this incredible experience of solidarity!
Ina, coordinator of the “Lasst Frauen Sprechen!” initiative in Germany.