Share:
Boy wants to be a girl
If a boy wants to be a girl on a permanent basis and dress in public, parents must not prohibit this against the best interests of the child. This was clarified by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe in a resolution published on Friday, December 29, 2017, and the allocation of the sole concern to a separated father was again tipped (Ref .: 1 BvR 1914/17).
Image: Matthias Stolt-fotolia Background of the dispute was the desire of a boy born in 2008 to behave and dress permanently like a girl. The child kept regularly after the so-called change model alternately in the separated parents. The parents exercised the common concern.
But with the first time expressed at the age of six years desire to be a girl, it came to a parenting dispute. Father and mother wanted to enforce the sole concern for themselves in order to educate the child also "correctly". Psychological investigations have the suspicion of a gender identity disorder.
The mother responded to the wish of the son. She put on girls' clothes, addressed the child with a maiden name, and communicated this in school. She pointed out that the child must finally be taken seriously and it should live happily in his felt sex.
The father did not think so. The mother would also promote the desire of the son with their behavior. Taunts threatened at school. If the son stays with him, everything is inconspicuous. He forbade the child to act as a girl in public. The father was confident that this would happen with puberty. He also pleaded for a psychotherapeutic treatment.
The child himself had told the district court that he did not mind wearing boy clothes. It had close social ties with both the father and the mother and wanted to keep it that way.
The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Naumburg finally awarded the father the sole concern. Whether there is a gender identity disorder in the meanwhile eight-year-old child is not clear. The behavior of the child is also "ambivalent", even if it behaves differently, the child should not be left with the decision to dress as a girl or a boy. Only the father guaranteed a "possible results open, accepting and supportive procedure, so that it must be granted the sole custody", decided the Higher Regional Court.
The mother thus saw her parent's right protected in the Basic Law violated. The father considers a gender role change unreasonable. He's putting pressure. So he threatened the child, not to receive Christmas gifts, if it does not cut his hair.
In their decision of 7 December 2017, the constitutional judges overturned the OLG decision. To what extent a parent can be given the sole care of a child, depends largely on the best interests of the child.
"The child is placed as a being with its own human dignity and its own right to free development of the personality under the special protection of the state," warned the Federal Constitutional Court. Here the child has made use of his will to self-determination by the manifestation of his will.
The reasoning of the Higher Regional Court is not sufficient for the sole allocation of the sole concern. Thus, the court did not take into account the effects it would have if the child is forced against his will by the father, only to act as a boy in public. In this case, a court expert feared "far-reaching negative consequences" if the child would be denied a desired social gender role change.
An endangerment of the child's health is thus possible, which the OLG now has to examine, according to the Federal Constitutional Court. fle