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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | LGBT Rights |
|---|---|
| located: | Germany |
| editor: | Gurmeet Singh |
Germany is in many ways a leading socially-liberal country – whether it is nudism in the East, sex clubs in Berlin or anything on TV after 6 pm, an outsider might get the impression that Germany is a world-leader in ‘free-spiritism’. However, it’s only now that this socially-liberal lifestyle is being undergirded by stronger laws.
A draft law was announced this month to ban the practice of Gay Conversation Therapy (GCT) across the country. This is a vital step in supporting the lives of LGBTQ people in the country: GCT is a widespread practice that seeks to destroy the existence of LGBTQ people by changing their behaviour and personhood in fundamental ways.
The practice targets LGBTQ lifestyles by targeting individuals. It aims to change the sexual orientation of people by coercive, emotional manipulation and false-science – things it calls ‘therapy’. It claims people are socialised into their sexuality, as opposed to being born with particular sexual orientations and since they have been socialised into it, they can be socialised out of it.
Writing a commentary piece in EuroNews, Hadley Stewart writes:
“At present, there is regulation to help prevent this practice from being carried out, but this often only implemented by regulatory bodies of healthcare professionals. Although these practitioners might be struck off their professional register, they may not face other legislative prosecution, such as fines or imprisonment. So-called therapists who are operating without professional accreditation, or using a religious group to access ‘clients,’ will rarely face consequences unless there is wider legislation in place.”
In this sense, liberalising sexual-freedoms in law also requires supplementary laws that change social conditions to ensure the continued existence of these freedoms. Making homophobic violence a hate crime, for example, is one such law. Banning GCT another. Only these kinds of laws will change the behaviour of anti-LGBTQ communities, and make individuals feel safer and more secure in being themselves.
It’s only a draft law, but in a similar spirit to the German cabinet’s approval of a bill to ban the practice of ‘upskirting’ or taking photos of a person underneath their clothes without their consent, this is a form of voyeurism, sexual harassment and privacy abuse which has been popularised through pornography and made more possible publically through smartphones and selfie sticks. As the DW reports: "Taking photographs of a woman under her skirt is a degrading and unjustifiable abuse of her personal space," said Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht.
The legislation would also criminalise photographing victims of accidents or pictures that "display a dead person in a grossly offensive way," according to Lambrecht.
This is a welcome change in the law, and one which shows that the often lamentable state of the country’s approach to digitalisation is now being revised; digitalisation is now seen as more than a set of technical issues. The country seems to finally be asking itself how it wants technology to be used. Thankfully, it is in support of the socially-liberal spirit of the country, and not against it.
