Legal aid for par­ents brochure

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Frauen­heldin­nen gemein­nütziger e.V.
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Glad­bach­er Bank
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Sub­ject: Legal aid for par­ents brochure

If you would like a dona­tion receipt, please write your address in the sub­ject line. Thank you very much!

Why this crowd­fund­ing?

The brochure

At the end of April 2023, we — Ste­fanie Bode and Rona Duwe — pub­lished the free 44-page par­ents’ brochure “Weg­weis­er aus dem Trans­gen­derkult” on the web­site of the “Lasst Frauen Sprechen!” ini­tia­tive. It is a con­densed trans­la­tion of the book “Desist, Detrans & Detox — Get­ting your child out of the gen­der cult” by Amer­i­can devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gist Maria Kef­fler.

In it, Kef­fler pro­vides edu­ca­tion­al aids for get­ting out of the belief that gen­der can be changed. Because of this belief, an increas­ing num­ber of chil­dren and ado­les­cents inter­na­tion­al­ly are seek­ing body-alter­ing and per­ma­nent­ly dam­ag­ing mea­sures. With the help of the edu­ca­tion­al approach described in the brochure, par­ents can learn to help their chil­dren accept their own bod­ies and stop defin­ing them­selves by gen­der role stereo­types.

In its present form, it is the first pub­li­ca­tion of its kind in Ger­many.

The guide­book is intend­ed for par­ents and adult care­givers of chil­dren and ado­les­cents who are look­ing for an alter­na­tive per­spec­tive to the pure­ly “trans” affir­ma­tive coun­sel­ing and par­ent­ing guides that are now wide­ly avail­able. The pub­li­ca­tion is pro­vid­ed free of charge for down­load and print­ing: Down­load brochure.

Attacks by trans­ac­tivists and Sven Lehmann

Since its pub­li­ca­tion, the brochure has caused quite a stir. Trans activists advised, among oth­er things, to report the brochure and us as pub­lish­ers to the Youth Wel­fare Office and the police and to request that it be indexed as harm­ful to minors. It was also announced that the psy­chother­a­pist Ste­fanie Bode will be report­ed to the Cham­ber of Psy­chother­a­pists. In addi­tion, we were accused of incit­ing con­ver­sion ther­a­py. Sven Lehmann, the queer com­mis­sion­er and state sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fam­i­ly Affairs, pub­licly wel­comed on Twit­ter to car­ry out an index­ing of the brochure.

Pro­tec­tion from self-harm­ing prac­tices may be inter­pret­ed as ‘con­ver­sion treat­ment’ since 2020

That the “Law for the Pro­tec­tion against Con­ver­sion Treat­ments” would be mis­used to silence crit­ics of trans­gen­der ide­ol­o­gy and to fur­ther estab­lish this ide­ol­o­gy social­ly, many of us already guessed in 2020. At that time, Ste­fanie Bode ini­ti­at­ed this open let­ter on the sub­ject, which unfor­tu­nate­ly remained incon­se­quen­tial: Open let­ter

Pro­ce­dure for index­ing and thus ban­ning the brochure

We have now been informed by the Fed­er­al Agency for the Pro­tec­tion of Chil­dren and Young Peo­ple in the Media that index­ing pro­ceed­ings have been ini­ti­at­ed to clas­si­fy the brochure as harm­ful to young peo­ple. The appli­ca­tion for index­ing comes from the Com­mis­sion for the Pro­tec­tion of Minors in the Media and its chair­man Dr. Marc Jan Eumann. We will be present at the Com­mis­sion meet­ing and have legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. If the brochure is indexed, which makes it almost impos­si­ble to dis­trib­ute, we will file a law­suit in the admin­is­tra­tive court.

This step would be impor­tant to restore free­dom of expres­sion and infor­ma­tion and to defend parental and children’s rights. These and sim­i­lar pub­li­ca­tions must not be cen­sored!

Pro­fes­sion­al pro­ceed­ings against Ste­fanie Bode as a psy­chother­a­pist

Since the end of June, we have also known that a pro­fes­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion has been ini­ti­at­ed against Ste­fanie Bode by the Baden-Würt­tem­berg Cham­ber of Psy­chother­a­pists. In the worst case, it could mean that her license to prac­tice med­i­cine is revoked or that she is ordered to pay a fine.

Ste­fanie Bode is also being rep­re­sent­ed by a lawyer in these pro­ceed­ings. And here, too, it is impor­tant to win so that psy­chother­a­pists once again have legal cer­tain­ty and do not have to fear chal­leng­ing gen­der iden­ti­ty ide­ol­o­gy.

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We must not allow state insti­tu­tions to pre­vent us from point­ing out alter­na­tives to the polit­i­cal­ly and media-pro­mot­ed world­view that says peo­ple can change sex, chil­dren may be born in the wrong body, and chil­dren must be ster­il­ized in order to be hap­py.

If we do not need all the donat­ed mon­ey, we will use it for legal aid of sim­i­lar cas­es.

Ste­fanie Bode is a psy­chol­o­gist, psy­chother­a­pist and polit­i­cal sci­en­tist. She has been active­ly involved in fem­i­nist ini­tia­tives since 2016.

Rona Duwe is a graph­ic design­er, author, blog­ger, and fem­i­nist activist.