A German Twitter user got himself into a heap o’ trouble for using an insulting word (nuttig, “slutty”) to describe the outfit worn by a trans “woman” who serves as an MP for the Green Party.
The offending Twitter user is a gay man, but that doesn’t earn him any protection. In the hierarchy of privileged identity politics, “trans” trumps mere homosexuality. As far as I know, the only more privileged category these days is Muslim, which of course trumps everything.
The referenced photograph is so grotesque that I’m not willing to display it here; this is the link to it. In my opinion, “Ms.” Ganserer is too unattractive to be “slutty”. But maybe I’m just a transphobic male chauvinist pig.
Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from the online news portal Nius. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:
If you call this outfit “slutty”, state security will get in touch
An X user was summoned by the state security service for “insult, slander and defamation against people in political life”. The reason: He had described an outfit that the Green Party MP Tessa Ganserer wore in the Bundestag as “slutty” in a tweet.
It was February when Mike Gick posted the tweet that has now, five months later, led to his being charged with defamation under paragraph 188 of the German Criminal Code.
This is what happened: In February, the AfD member of the Bundestag Martin Reichardt held up a German flag during a speech in the Bundestag. Bundestag President Bärbel Bas then reprimanded Reichardt and imposed a fine of €1,000 on him.
Gick to NIUS: “When I heard that, I was stunned. While Tessa Ganserer is sitting in the Bundestag in an outfit that I could never afford at work without getting into trouble, a call to order is made because a German flag allegedly violates the dignity of the House.” [A government that despises its own national flag has lost, in my eyes, any shred of legitimacy.]
“As a gay man, I don’t feel represented”
He tweeted: “A member of parliament receives a reprimand for holding up the German flag… but when another member of parliament spreads his ideology in the plenary as a man in a slutty women’s outfit, this is apparently perfectly fine with the Bundestag presidium. Germany, quo vadis?”
Gick had already been annoyed by Ganserer’s inappropriate behavior. “As a gay man, I don’t feel represented by what Tessa Ganserer and the queer community are doing. On the contrary: everything that we gays, lesbians and bisexuals have fought for over the years is being trampled on: that we might be seen as normal people.”
Because of this tweet, he is now supposed to appear before the police.
Although the tweet was reported, X has not to date deleted it. Gick to NIUS: “The tweet appears to have been correctly classified as an expression of opinion.”
Letter came from State Security
When he received the letter on July 2, Gick initially did not even know that the insult he was accused of was the tweet, as it was not mentioned in the letter. Only by knowing the time at which he was supposed to have committed the insult — 8:43 p.m. — was he able to reconstruct that it must have been the tweet in question.
He immediately called the indicated police station. Explosive: At first, no one knew the officer who had signed. Only after several calls were forwarded was he told: “The man is from state security.” [Their priorities never cease to amaze.]
He is now due to report to the police station on Friday, but he will not be keeping the appointment. Instead, he has hired a lawyer at his own expense. “Of course, that will cost me a lot of money,” he says. But he is not prepared to back down. “I stand by my statement, which was never related to the person, but only to the outfit. I cannot think of a term that is as appropriate as the one I have chosen.”
Afterword from the translator:
German “State Security” — like any other such organization around the world — are not concerned with the security of the state or protecting its people from terrorism and tyranny, but only with the protection of the image of the current incompetent incumbents. And just like the FBI, they have to create “crimes” or blow ideologically perceived crimes out of proportion to validate their own existence. Having lived for many years in Cape Town, with a large gay community, I can only say that those gays I know and am friends with would concur with that guy’s statement. They all HATE the LGBTQ+-xyz crowd with an almost “homicidal” passion.