Episode 116: The Evolution of LGBTQ+ Rights in Germany
Eric Langenbacher
Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program
Dr. Eric Langenbacher is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program at AICGS.
Dr. Langenbacher studied in Canada before completing his PhD in Georgetown University’s Government Department in 2002. His research interests include collective memory, political culture, and electoral politics in Germany and Europe. Recent publications include the edited volumes Twilight of the Merkel Era: Power and Politics in Germany after the 2017 Bundestag Election (2019), The Merkel Republic: The 2013 Bundestag Election and its Consequences (2015), Dynamics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary Europe (co-edited with Ruth Wittlinger and Bill Niven, 2013), Power and the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations (co-edited with Yossi Shain, 2010), and From the Bonn to the Berlin Republic: Germany at the Twentieth Anniversary of Unification (co-edited with Jeffrey J. Anderson, 2010). With David Conradt, he is also the author of The German Polity, 10th and 11th edition (2013, 2017).
Dr. Langenbacher remains affiliated with Georgetown University as Teaching Professor and Director of the Honors Program in the Department of Government. He has also taught at George Washington University, Washington College, The University of Navarre, and the Universidad Nacional de General San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has given talks across the world. He was selected Faculty Member of the Year by the School of Foreign Service in 2009 and was awarded a Fulbright grant in 1999-2000 and the Hopper Memorial Fellowship at Georgetown in 2000-2001. Since 2005, he has also been Managing Editor of German Politics and Society, which is housed in Georgetown’s BMW Center for German and European Studies. Dr. Langenbacher has also planned and run dozens of short programs for groups from abroad, as well as for the U.S. Departments of State and Defense on a variety of topics pertaining to American and comparative politics, business, culture, and public policy.
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Klaus Jetz
Verband Queere Vielfalt LSVD+
Klaus Jetz is the Executive Director of the Verband Queere Vielfalt LSVD+ (The Queer Association for Diversity), formerly known as the Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD). The LSVD is a civil rights organization dedicated to representing and advocating for the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals. The association works to promote human rights, diversity, and the social acceptance and recognition of LGBTI people as an integral part of society. In his role as Executive Director, Jetz oversees the activities of the association across Germany, with offices in Berlin, Cologne, and other regions. His responsibilities also extend to the Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by the LSVD in 2007 to support LGBTQ+ individuals at risk in Eastern Europe and the Global South. The foundation focuses on international advocacy, networking, and collaboration with local organizations to protect and empower LGBTQ+ communities in these regions. Klaus Jetz holds a Master of Arts in Romance Studies and History.
For thirty-five years, the LSVD+ – Queer Diversity Association has been representing the interests of LGBTQ+ people in Germany. Its managing director Klaus Jetz joins The Zeitgeist to discuss how LGBTQ+ rights have changed in Germany since unification, the challenges the community faces now, and how the LSVD+ has advocated for greater civil rights in Germany. With guest host Eric Langenbacher, he also discusses how the LSVD+ works with other organizations to advance LGBTQ+ rights globally.
Guest Host
Eric Langenbacher, AGI Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program
Guests
Klaus Jetz, Executive Director, LSVD+ – Queer Diversity Association
Transcript
Eric Langenbacher
Welcome, everybody, to this edition of The Zeitgeist podcast here at the American-German Institute. I’m Eric Langenbacher, a senior fellow and the director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program here at AGI. Today, we’re going to be speaking with Klaus Jetz, who is the Geschaftsführer, or the executive director, of the LSVD+ organization, the Federation Queer Diversity, based in Cologne, Germany. And we had the opportunity to meet with Klaus when we were on our study tour for our LGBTQ+ exchange program, this was back earlier this year in April 2024. Klaus, it’s really nice to—kind of—see you again and welcome.
Klaus Jetz
Thank you very much for the invitation.
Eric Langenbacher
So Klaus, I thought maybe we could begin with you providing a few more details about yourself, your journey, and how you got to this position today.
Klaus Jetz
It was just by, I would say, an accident, because I was looking for a job when I finished my studies back in the 90s. I studied Spanish and French literature, Latin American literature, and history. And, when I finished in 1992, I think it was, I was looking for a job, and a friend of mine said the gay association in Germany is looking for a press officer. And so I ran for this job and I was selected. And since that time in the 90s I have been working as a press officer for the LSVD in those times—LSVD+ nowadays—and for our Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation, which is our human rights foundation. But I never stopped working as well on Latin American issues, Spanish issues, or literature as a translator of Spanish novels, Latin American novels from Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Cuban novels, et cetera. And to write about Latin American issues, history, politics, and culture, mainly literature.
Eric Langenbacher
Fascinating. So maybe first you could give us more details about the LSVD+ Federation itself. What is your main mission? What is the structure of your organization, and what are the main activities?
Klaus Jetz
Our mission is equality in front of the law or before the law: equal rights for LGBTI+ people. We’ve been fighting for equal rights for same-sex couples for a long time until we were granted marriage-for-all rights in 2017. We are a non-discrimination organization working on anti-discrimination policies and activities based on LGBTIQ+. And we are a kind of watchdog as well. As soon as in society, in the media, or wherever in politics there is discriminatory wording against LGBTI+ people, we raise our voice and we are heard by media. But we are invited as well by legislators, by the German Parliament, or ministries as soon as they do have project law in the pipeline to give our views on this project. So we are the national LGBTIQ+ organization; we speak for trans and intersex people as well. Of course, there are other organizations, and we closely cooperate with these organizations.
Eric Langenbacher
Great. And what about your personnel? How big of an organization, how big of an outfit is it? And I understand that you have offices in both Cologne and in Berlin. So maybe you could talk a little bit about what those two offices do as well?
Klaus Jetz
Yes, our main headquarters, our main office is based in Cologne in the western part of Germany. But as the capital is no longer Bonn, but Berlin now for some years, we decided to open a Liasonbüro, or press office, as well in the capital. And so we divided our work on the national level into offices. Cologne, the head office, is mainly doing administrative work. We have a lot of projects funded by the German government, so it is a lot of work to do on administration side. In Berlin there is mainly the activities such as lobbying going on and work with the media. But we have in all the sixteen regions regional branches. And they do mainly the work we see in regional parliaments and governments in all sixteen regions of Germany, the so-called Bundesländer (federal states).
Eric Langenbacher
And what about the origins of the organization? Because I understand that the organization was actually founded in eastern Germany. In Leipzig, if memory serves, shortly after, or around the time of, what the Germans call the “Wende,” or the reunification of Germany back in 1990. So maybe you could tell us more about the origins, what the East German dynamic was, and then why eventually you moved operations to Cologne and then, well, Berlin is pretty obvious I guess.
Klaus Jetz
Yes, indeed. We were founded in 1990, in February of 1990, in the eastern German city of Leipzig, before the reunification of Germany, which took place on the third of October, 1990. The wall came down in November 1989. And some people from West Germany were looking for a new association for LGBTIQ+ rights for mainly same-sex marriage issues, for non-discrimination issues, because there was one in western parts of the country, a national one, for the former Federal Republic of Germany, but it was against civil rights such as marriage rights and they didn’t want it to be very committed with politics, with government issues, with laws, et cetera. So, some people were looking for a new association and they found, after the wall came down, the opportunity to join the East German organization, called Gay Federation in GDR, and they just joined this. They founded a new one together, a new association, they founded this one—Gay Federation in GDR. And when the unification came, we expanded all over the country, which means going to the western parts with our organization. And the origin of this founding, as it was done in eastern Germany, is a civil rights movement of the East German movement for civil rights, and within this movement you have a gay rights movement under the umbrella of the Protestant church. There was another by the government, organized and controlled by the Eastern German Communist government, and they wouldn’t like to have independent movements for civil rights. So that’s why it was organized under the umbrella, or under the roof, of the Protestant church, which was more open than the Catholic one in these times.
So we expanded from the east to the western parts, and nowadays we count up to 4,500 individual members and 120 cooperative members, which means other organizations and companies. 4,500 is not a lot because people come in and go out as soon as the problem has been solved. But we are still growing. But we should have more than 10,000 or 50,000 members because Germany has 80 million inhabitants and of course a lot of queer people around, so it would be nice to have more, but it’s like political parties. As soon as you do politics, it’s difficult to get members organized.
Eric Langenbacher
I find this history so fascinating because so much of post-unification in Germany has been about western organizations or companies or individuals going east. And you know there aren’t a lot of examples of things moving the other way. So, I find this kind of East German origin to be quite fascinating, especially the roots in the in the Protestant church in the Evangelical church. But you know, can I just ask one follow-up on that? Because sometimes in the literature and with people there’s been bit of a debate about which Germany was more supportive or progressive when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights, and some people have argued that East Germany was actually more progressive. So if you think back about Paragraph 175, which was the provision of the German legal code that would persecute especially homosexual men, East Germany seems to have been more progressive in abolishing that back in 1969, whereas in West Germany they just reformed it. And then it was only finally abolished, I think, in 1994. But would you agree that maybe when it comes to rights for the LGBTQ+ community that East Germany might have been more progressive?
Klaus Jetz
No, not at all. I wouldn’t say this. I think you cannot speak about being liberal in a dictatorship. Perhaps the movement could act as such, but in the underground, because everything was controlled. Every free movement is perhaps similar to what’s going on in the Russian Federation nowadays, as there was no independent movement that had the possibility to act openly. So they always had to do their work in a hidden way, in a secret way. And of course yes, when you speak about Paragraph 175, it was reformed or deleted in East Germany earlier than in West Germany. But in West Germany, the 175 was reformed back in 1969 and 72. What came afterward was just that law until it was deleted finally in 1995 because the other way around, the new Bundesländer—the new parts of the country that came to Germany after the reunification—would have introduced again 175, would wouldn’t have been listed or wouldn’t have been convincing. So I would not say that East Germany was more progressive because you had no democracy. You didn’t have opportunities to work as a civil rights movement openly. But in West Germany you had all the discussions going on in the 70s and 80s about the gay movement, together with the feminist movement, about 1968. All the reforms that came down after the change of government back in 1969, et cetera. So to my opinion, if I think about it, the society was much more open than in East Germany, and you had much more possibilities as a member of the LGBTI communities [in West Germany] than in East Germany. You couldn’t even travel abroad, perhaps to Poland or to Prague in the Czechoslovakia in those times, but not to the Western world.
Eric Langenbacher
So, you have a big anniversary coming up; next February it will be the 35th anniversary of the founding of your organization. And you’ve been with it since almost the beginning, it seems. I’m wondering, looking back, in your own kind of experience, what do you think have been the biggest achievements of the LSVD+?
Klaus Jetz
The biggest achievement came late, and it was in 2017: Marriage rights for all, which means for same-sex couples as well. Of course we had a registered partnership law from 2001 onwards, but there were differences between marriage rights and the registered partnership law. And the law improved more and more, and it didn’t make any sense to have two institutions going as a proposal for the people in the country. So finally, it was decided in Parliament to open marriage rights for same-sex couples as well. And this was a major achievement because we had been fighting for it from the beginning of our work back in 1990, so it took us twenty-seven years to get it.
But before as well, we had a discrimination law in 2006, which was a major step forward, because before this law, discrimination was legal, so to say. You could say no, I do not want you as a worker or as an employee because you are gay or a trans person. And there was no legal tool to combat this discrimination. This was achieved thanks to the European Union in 2006. And what has to be mentioned, as well, is a memorial place for the persecuted homosexuals during the Nazi times, because we spoke about Paragraph 175 that persecuted homosexuals, and the Nazi version was very severe, and people were brought to prison, to concentration camps. A lot of people were killed. And we have been asking not just for a memorial place, but how to commemorate these victims of Paragraph 175, and we achieved this as well in 2007 as a place close to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, opposite side of the street. It is a vivid place where you go and have assemblies, where you go and show people what happened during Nazi times. And it was about rehabilitation as well. That was a law that all the sentences were declared invalid in 2002; it was a major step as well in achievement and people were rehabilitated, the former victims of Paragraph 175 during the Old Republic between 1949 and 69. This was an achievement as well. A big success.
Eric Langenbacher
Those certainly are so important to successes over the last few years. When you look at the present situation in Germany and you look to the future, are there any other challenges? What will be your big issues going forward?
Klaus Jetz
Well, we had this self-determination law, which was introduced on the 1st of October this year. It took us some years as well to get the former transsexual law deleted and have a new self-determination law. This was done by this government. We have the three-party government. We have been asking for it for a long time, so this was done, but there was a big opposition—and still in the media. Speaking about sexual orientation might not be such a problem anymore, but speaking about gender issues still is a big issue, because our enemies look at this and try to render a lot of progress when you speak about gender, gender identity, and gender issues, and our legislators, our government, our authorities learned that there are more than two genders. We have a non-binary system, which means we have at least a third gender in our laws, and this was a major step this year as well.
But when it comes to education, school programs, et cetera, there are some very conservative people or right-wing people who argue that we shouldn’t bring our children in contact to social issues, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Whereas we say we have to prepare our children for life, which is very important to give them a weapon to protect themselves, to know what we speak about. We should not speak about sex or so in school but, just let them learn that there are more than father/mother classical families, traditional families. There are rainbow families. There are transgender people, intersex people as well. We have to prepare our children for life and make them strong.
We still have to fight in the non-discrimination sector to get our Constitution, the Basic Law, amended because such issues are not mentioned in our Constitution. There is Article III of our Constitution, speaking about non-discrimination, the so-called equality section of the Constitution, and there it says no one can be discriminated against for whatsoever reason and all the reasons are mentioned, except for gender identity and sexual orientation. And this has to be amended because it means more protection. For example, the Paragraph 175 would have been a contradiction to the Constitution, if it had been in the Constitution. But as it was not in it, the constitutional law could say no, it is okay to have section 175 back in 1957. So it means just more protection. Our achievements on the legal grounds could not be deleted so easily. That’s why we asked for it. But it needs a lot of support. It needs a two-thirds majority of in both chambers, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.
Eric Langenbacher
You spoke before about opponents in your work, and I, of course, immediately thought of the Alternative for Germany, the AfD, which seems to be especially homophobic and transphobic. I’m wondering, do you have any specific strategies that you think are effective to push back on a lot of the messaging that’s coming from the AfD?
Klaus Jetz
Yes, we have a program called Living Democracy and it aims to strengthen democracy and together with other organizations such as Federation Trans Germany or intersex associations and some academies doing schooling on LGBTI issues, we form a competence network, and the aim is to educate the greater population as well as policymakers on LGBTI issues to bring “rainbow competence,” as we call this LGBTIQ+ competence or queer competence, to all these people. You have to do this permanently, steadily, because otherwise, new people come and don’t get this education, which is so needed. And we have to mainstream all these issues, because I would say we are still a weak movement, not as in other countries such as Sweden or the Netherlands. They have been much stronger. Of course, they face problems as well, with right-wing populism, the new government in the Netherlands, et cetera. But they are older as well. These organizations like COC in the Netherlands or RFSL in Sweden or Denmark, they were founded some sixty years ago, whereas we just have thirty-five years. And these societies are different; they are more urban societies, at least in the Netherlands, whereas Germany as a bigger country, has a lot of countryside around, not just urban or cities.
So, that’s what we are doing. We try to educate and to sensitize people, campaigning for LGBTI+ rights. How do we live, how many people are LGBTIQ? What are the main achievements? I mean, just the issues we are speaking of here on this program. Those things we try to bring into society just to make people aware of what we are, of who we are, what we need, what are our capacities, and why it is important to include us everywhere. Because if you exclude people, it is a huge cost for business and for society. Less diversity means more cost.
Eric Langenbacher
Your last answer transitions really nicely into my next question, which is, you mentioned several organizations and other European countries, but I’m wondering if you could share a little bit more on what kind of international engagement the LSVD+ organization engages in.
Klaus Jetz
We’ve been doing international work from the beginning. We are member organization of ILGA, ILGA World and ILGA Europe. We have founded our own human rights foundation, the Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation, under which we do our human rights work abroad, which means support for other colleagues, friends, or other LGBTI organizations in the Global South and in Eastern Europe. We do fundraising for our partners; we try to open doors to the German government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, all the embassies on the ground. We have a great network of people. We work in the Global South and in Eastern Europe, mainly in Latin American countries but sub-Saharan Africa as well, even the MENA region, and to Turkey, Poland, Eastern Europe. We had good relations with Russia. Now they are all exiled. They live in other countries, and we still support the exiled people from Russia, our colleagues and friends. In the Baltic countries we do a lot of work as well. And on the Western Balkans countries such as Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia. These are our regions where we can do work thanks to the support of the German governments as well thanks to funds we raise here in Germany. And we forward every euro one-to-one to our partner organizations. This year and last year LSVD+ is co-chair together with the Fundación [Arcoiris] in Mexico of the Equal Rights Coalition. Every two years the co-chairship changes. The next one will be Spain and the Netherlands, and we took over from Argentina and the UK in 2022. We are organizing a big conference in Berlin in December. We are expecting up to 130 LGBTI activists from the Global South, Eastern Europe, and other European countries, from the U.S. and Canada and a lot of government representatives. They all gather in Berlin during three days, and it’s a lot of work to do still, and it will be a big LGBTIQ conference, similar to what’s going on in Cape Town now in November, with the ILGA World conference.
Eric Langenbacher
Fascinating. We are rapidly running out of time, but I did want to ask one question just to follow up on some of the things that you were just mentioning. When it comes to this kind of work, it always comes down to the money, to the funds, to the fundraising. And I’m wondering if you could share a little bit more about how you get the resources that you need. You mentioned German government grants. You also mentioned that you have corporate members, but I’m just wondering, given how just important these resources are, not just for domestic but for your international work, where are they typically coming from?
Klaus Jetz
We have public money as we run for projects funded by the German government, be it the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the Ministry of Family Affairs, or even Health. They all do LGBTI projects, and we ask for projects, and we are funded, but this is just project funding. There is no institutional funding; we do not get any structural funding from the government, which makes a difference. We can do a lot of projects and hire staff to do very good work, but it’s not for our political work, for our lobbying, work we do as LSVD+. For LSVD+ we have membership fees people pay, let’s say 10 euros a month, which means 120 euros per year, and some people pay more. Others who do not earn money, such as students or retired people or jobless people, they pay a minimum of €2.50, but it makes, as a sum, a lot of money, and we can afford personnel costs. We can have two offices in Berlin and Cologne. And of course, we receive donations, private money and money we can bend as we consider the best way to spend it for political issues, campaigning, but lobbying as well, speaking with our politicians, legislators, ministers, et cetera. So we have two structures. On one hand, we have an association. We created another association to ask for project funding, for, let’s say, public money. And these projects are implemented by this family association of LSVD+. And on the other hand, we just have LSVD+ where we spend the money we receive from our membership fees and donations for LSVD+ work, which means two separate bank accounts and for the international work our Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation as a project of LSVD+. Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation is not an independent foundation because it does not have enough capital to stand on its own feet. So we have this concept of a foundation managed by our federation.
Eric Langenbacher
Well, thank you so much for sharing it. We are unfortunately out of time, but Klaus, did you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with our listeners?
Klaus Jetz
I’m looking forward to the future. We are under pressure, our whole community. If you look to the east, the Russian Federation is expanding, is attacking Ukraine because Ukraine is an open society, has some achievements for LGBTIQ+ as well, and the Putin regime is preaching hate against the LGBTI community. I consider it as an attack on our open society as well. But I’m looking forward that we overcome this situation of war and of aggression. And hopefully we can continue with our work as well in Eastern Europe and in the Russian Federation one day.
Eric Langenbacher
Thank you very much. I was speaking with Klaus Jetz from the LSVD+, Federation Queer Diversity. He’s based in Cologne. Have a great day and to our listeners, please stay tuned for next editions of the Zeitgeist podcast. Bye.
Klaus Jetz
Thank you very much. Bye bye.
This podcast is part of the project “Building LGBTQ+ Communities in Germany and the United States: Past, Present, and Future” and is generously funded by the Transatlantik-Programm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus Mitteln des European Recovery Program (ERP) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz(BMWK) (Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany with Funds through the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry for Economics and Climate Action (BMWK)).
