What followed was a precedent-setting legal win in Germany, grounded in the Self-Determination Act (SBGG). But this case wasn’t just about me, it exposed how little protection digital platforms offer to trans people and how crucial it is to fight back.

Drawing from my work in parliament and community organisations, I will explore how legal tools, public visibility, and community pressure can shift power and why trans voices must be at the centre when policies and systems that affect our lives are shaped.

Transgender individuals who are also neurodivergent often navigate a world that was not built with their needs in mind. This presentation explores the lived experiences at the intersection of gender diversity and neurodivergence, focusing particularly on the challenges of transition-related healthcare and the discrimination that frequently occurs within medical systems.
Drawing on first-hand accounts from neurodivergent trans* people – especially those who are autistic or have ADHD – the talk highlights both the systemic barriers they face and the specific needs they have in accessing affirming care and support. At the same time, it underscores the resilience, creativity, and unique perspectives that arise from these intersecting identities.
This presentation aims to encourage participants to deepen their understanding and actively support and empower individuals who live beyond normative expectations, particularly within healthcare contexts.

In the light of partly inconsistent evidence the standards for best practice in transgender health care in adolescence are still a focus of international debate. In current treatment guidelines as developed by scientific medical societies, however, there is broad agreement in that appropriate healthcare in this field has to face these uncertainties just as this is the case in other complex conditions in paediatric medicine. Therefore practice guidelines are needed that are based on both the best available evidence and the broadest available clinical expert consent. Furthermore, guidelines should define how to address the ethical challenges in this field that arise from balancing beneficence and non-maleficence, and giving due weight to autonomy and justice. Furthermore, treatment recommendations should be particularly sensitive to aspects of participation and discrimination of this patient group representing a vulnerable minority. In this keynote, the following recently released practice guidelines and consensus papers from various European countries will be summarized and discussed with a focus on how they address the issues around evidence and ethics in this field:

• German S2k-guideline Gender Incongruence and Gender Dysphoria in Childhood and Adolescence: Diagnosis and Treatment, published by the German Association of Scientific Medical Societies (AWMF, 2024);
• Recommendation paper: Medical treatment for minors with gender dysphoria: Ethical and legal considerations, published by the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics (2024);
• Practice guideline: Endocrine management of transgender and gender diverse adolescents, Expert opinion of the ESPE Working Group on Gender Incongruence (2024):
• Practice guideline: Endocrine management of transgender adolescents: Expert consensus of the French society of paediatric endocrinology and diabetology working group (2024)