Starting Friday, people aged 18 and older will be able to change official records to alter their names and genders or have the gender marker removed altogether, under Germany’s new Self-Determination Act. There is a mandatory three-month wait between applying and making a personal declaration. Yet the requirement for two psychiatric assessments and a court hearing have been scrapped. Minors — over the age of 14 — can do so with parental approval, or seek legal recourse. Parents can act on behalf of younger children, but the child needs to be present at the register office and give their assent. This is a purely bureaucratic procedure with no medical implications.