Two candidates just earned spots in history as Germany’s first out trans women lawmakers after winning seats in its parliamentary elections on Sunday.
The Greens, a center-left political party focused on environmental advocacy, finished third in the elections for Germany’s Bundestag, winning 14.8% of the vote. That total represents the 42-year-old party’s best-ever finish in the German federal races and will also result in a pair of other milestones: parliamentary seats for 44-year-old Tessa Ganserer and 27-year-old Nyke Slawik.
“It is a historic victory for the Greens, but also for the trans-emancipatory movement and for the entire queer community,” Ganserer, who has served in the parliament of the German state of Bavaria since 2013, told Reuters.
Slawik added in an Instagram post that the results of the election were “madness.” A research assistant for lawmakers in North Rhine-Westphalia’s parliament, Slawik ran for local office in the northwestern German state four years ago before running for European Parliament in 2019. She came short both times.
“I still can’t quite believe it,” Slawik wrote, “but with this historic election result I will definitely be a member of the next Bundestag.”
While Ganserer and Slawik will be the first trans parliamentary lawmakers to be out at the time of their elections, they are not the first transgender people to be seated in the Bundestag. Christian Schenk was closeted during the 12 years he spent in Germany’s parliament — first as a member of Independent Women’s Association Party and then the Party of Democratic Socialism — and came out in 2006 after leaving the legislature.
The new lawmakers’ priorities include improving the quality of life for LGBTQ+ Germans. Ganserer, in particular, hopes to streamline the process of applying for a gender marker correction. Trans people who wish to amend their legal gender must file a petition with a local court, which commissions two experts to certify that the applicant has not identified with their assigned gender for at least three years, according to the Rainbow Portal, a government resource for LGBTQ+ Germans.
The process is both time-consuming and financially burdensome. It takes applicants an average of nine months to receive a corrected gender marker and costs an average of $2,185.65 to complete, per Rainbow Portal. And depending on the experts’ findings, the petition may or may not be approved.
Although the German government confirmed in February that an update to the 40-year-old policy was in the works, it has yet to move forward.
