I Got My Gender for Christmas
Some people get socks for Christmas. Others get gadgets. Me? I got my gender…
Some people get socks for Christmas. Others get gadgets. Me? I got my gender! Legally, officially, and with just a hint of German bureaucracy. It wasn’t wrapped in shiny paper or tied with a bow, but it came with a kind of joy that will give me strength for many years to come.
The day I officially changed my gender and name on paper was, quite honestly, a little boring. I had pictured something a bit more momentous… maybe my parents coming along, or at least some shared sense of occasion. But when I sent them a calendar invite for the appointment, they didn’t seem to realize I might want company. So, I went alone.
At the office, the process was… peak Germany. Three different federal employees spent twelve minutes searching for the single document I had to sign. I stood there in a crimson dress (looking absolutely stunning), while they rummaged through folders and drawers explaining to me that the law was so new that there was no system yet. The whole scene felt a little like something out of a blackbox theatre show. Something between a satire and a drama, with me both as protagonist and spectator. When they finally found it, the next step was to formally read it to me. They explained “all the consequences” of this change, as though I wasn’t already living them every single day.
Until I had finished signing the paper, they misgendered me. It wasn’t malicious, just procedural. But there was something profoundly funny about it, given that I was standing there in my dress, my makeup done for the occasion, my presence unapologetically me. The signing itself? That took three minutes.
Twelve minutes to find the paper, three minutes to sign it, and my gender was officially sent off to be corrected. Efficiency at its finest.
The moment I found out the change had been formally registered in my birth city, I was back in the Netherlands, standing in the middle of a discount store called Action. The aisles were lined with Christmas decorations, and I was blasting Solence in my headphones to drown out the christmas shopping drama around me, when the email popped into my inbox. It came from an address that made me laugh out loud: neugeborene@email.
In German, neugeborene means “newborns,” but it can also mean “reborn people.” I couldn’t think of a more fitting coincidence.
I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream, I just smiled. I texted my partner and a close friend, then immediately ordered my new birth certificates. It felt mundane, like crossing off an item on a to-do list. Compared to the battles I’d already fought in my transition.. navigating psych evaluations for hormones, enduring the pain of losing friends and family, this moment was refreshingly simple. This wasn’t a dramatic transformation. It was just a fix. A correction of a mistake that never should have been there in the first place.
Trans joy is often portrayed as loud, colourful, and celebratory. And it can and should be. But for me, in that moment, it was much quieter. It was the joy of knowing I could simply exist as myself in more places. It was the quiet relief of having one less barrier.
At the same time, my joy isn’t blind. The world right now is... well the world right now. Celebrating a bare minimum level of equality—a corrected document—feels strange when so many others are still denied this basic right.
This whole experience taught me, however, that joy can be as small as an email from neugeborene@email, or as quiet as signing a piece of paper that says, “Yes, I’m me.” The systems we create don’t have to make life harder. Changing a document should be just that.. a change, not a fight. Everyone deserves the chance to be themselves.
So yes, I got my gender for Christmas. It might not have come wrapped in shiny paper, but it’s the best gift I’ve ever given myself.
