Germany’s parliament will be reviewing proposed amendments submitted by a pro-pedophile group tomorrow, sparking concerns from child safeguarding advocates. Krumme-13, a lobby group which advocates for lowering the age of consent and legalizing child pornography, is seeking to add language to the constitution which would establish “pedosexuality” as a protected sexual identity.
Dieter Gieseking, the founder of Krumme-13, announced the upcoming vote to his supporters in a post made to the group’s website last week.
“K13online calls for a ban on discrimination against gays and lesbians AND pedophiles in the constitution,” reads the statement. “The vote… will be broadcast live on Parliamentary TV.”
The post highlights the fact that Krumme-13 intends to continue to pressure the government to normalize pedophilia via the Bundestag’s petition process, a strategy that the pedophile activists have undertaken for several years.
“We are already announcing further petitions on topic-relevant areas. The topic of pedophilia / pedosexuality must constantly be in the political debate. The human rights of this sexual minority are becoming ever more restricted. The political fight for acceptance and recognition will never end. The new generation of pedophile-loving people is just growing up,” he wrote.
Krumme-13 appears to have been emboldened by the success of a previous petition drafted by Gieseking on “children’s rights.”
Last October, the Bundestag accepted an amendment written by the pro-pedophile advocate which would alter Article 6, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law to state that “the child’s well-being is paramount”.
However, further elaboration holds that children ought to be treated as “legal subjects” and have a right to have “a say in all matters concerning their spiritual, mental and physical well-being, as well as the right to freely develop their personality.”
Gieseking made certain to point out to his followers on his website that the intended implication of the phrase is to create a legal framework for establishing sexuality as a children’s right. The phrase “sexual self-determination” is included in Article 2 of the Basic Law under the conditions of the “free development of personality.”
“Sexual self-determination (also for children) is derived from the free development of the personality in Article 2,” Gieseking wrote in 2021. As a reference, the petition as well as the German Bundestag both cite the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Krumme-13 petition was was supported by representatives of the Socialist Democrats, Free Democratic Party, and Green Party.
In April of this year, Gieseking shared the news that his petition to include the “sexual identity of pedophiles” as a protected characteristic under the constitution had been approved for discussion by the Petitions Committee.
“The petition service of the German Bundestag announced that the petition ‘Sexual Identity in the Basic Law’, which also includes the sexual identity of pedophiles, will be discussed as an individual petition within the committee. There will therefore be a separate recommendation for a resolution. The Petitions Committee has thus complied with the petitioner’s request.”
“In addition to all of the proposed children’s rights, sexual self-determination must also be protected and included in the Basic Law,” reads a K13online blog post about the petition dated July 2022.
Gieseking has repeatedly claimed that his campaigns to have pedophilia protected as a sexual identity are not equivalent to legalizing child sexual abuse. The activists of K13online have been demanding that the “pedophile [sexual] identity” be “protected from discrimination, criminalization, exclusion and persecution” under Germany’s equality laws.
“Pedophilia must also be included in sexual identity. Pedophiles in particular must be fundamentally protected from discrimination in the Basic Law. And this is completely independent of sexual criminal law. The vast majority of the estimated 250,000 pedophiles do not commit any of these types of crimes. Pedophilia is a separate sexual identity.”
Again, in April, the pedophile advocate stated that the “pedophile identity in the GG (Basic Law) is not about the legalization of consensual sexuality between children and adults,” thereby reiterating his belief that children can consent to sexual activity. “It’s about protecting the pedophile identity from discrimination and thus the recognition and acceptance of pedophiles as a sexual minority.”
Yet his claims contradict other actions and positions advocated for by Krumme-13. In another petition he sent to the government, Gieseking called for the decriminalization of the possession and distribution of child pornography.
“Legalizing clearly self-determined sexuality between older people and those under 14 is the best protection against actual sexual violence against children,” Gieseking wrote, while calling for the abolition of Sections 176 [Sexual Abuse of Children] and 188 [Dissemination, Acquisition and Possession of Child Pornographic Content] of the legal code.
Gieseking advocates for a distinction to be made between “sexual consent” and “sexual violence” when it comes to sexual acts between adults and children. As it is his belief that children can consent to sex with adults, he promotes the view that only the latter should be criminalized.
Gieseking, a 68-year-old former Federal Border Guard official, founded K13 in Trier in 1993 and promoted the group as a “self-help” organization for “pedosexuals.” He has been repeatedly charged with the possession of child pornography.
In 1996, Gieseking was sentenced to eighteen months, for which he served one year in prison, on charges related to operating a mail order child pornography service from a van. In 2003, Gieseking again appeared in court accused of possession of child sexual abuse materials obtained between July 1999 and January 2001. The pornography was found on Gieseking’s computer after a search of his residence in August 2001. His devices contained a total of 216 image files of naked children, and he was sentenced to eight months in prison.
At the time, Gieseking was also accused of linking to a child pornography page on his website. This link was discovered by jugendschutz.net, an organization set up by the federal government to protect minors online.
In a 2014 interview with Taz Online, Gieseking called for lowering the age of consent to 12 years of age, and said that adult sexual interactions with toddlers would have to be “discussed separately.”
“The taboo of pedophilia must finally be broken at all levels of society. If a pedophile can come out without fear of exclusion or even demonization, then this is the best prevention against child abuse,” Gieseking told the outlet.
In accordance with his views on children’s ability to consent, Gieseking has publicly endorsed Germany’s new gender self-identification law, which takes effect November 1 and allows parents to change the sex marker on their children’s documents from birth. From the age of five years old, it allows for name and sex changes if there is “mutual consent” between the child and their parents.
“Why is gender identity also politically important for pedophiles/pedosophists?” Gieseking wrote in a post to K13online. “Gender and sexual identity does not only begin on the 14th birthday, when the so-called protection age limit ends. Children can and want to experience their childhood sexuality self-determined beforehand.”