Queer Life | Casa Kuá Demo in Berlin: “Hands off Tran’s life!”

The demonstration on Saturday in Berlin is a response to a police search on behalf of the public prosecutor on suspicion of drug-related crime in the “Casa Kua” project. Photo: Fabian Sommer/dpa In solidarity with the “Casa Kuà” project and the group The Dolls, hundreds are demonstrating in Kreuzberg for better access to health care for trans people. According to police reports, 500 people gathered at Mariannenplatz under the motto “Hands off Tran's life!”

There were searches on Sunday last week in the “Casa Kuà” project, a center for queer people that, among other things, offers advice for trans people. The transfeminine group The Dolls meets there on Sundays. According to an authority spokesman, the public prosecutor's office is investigating suspected illegal trade in prescription drugs. It's supposed to be about hormone preparations for trans people. The police seized prescription drugs and narcotics, data carriers and four-figure cash, it was said.

“Casa Kuá” advocates for what it believes is better access to health care for transgender, intersex, non-binary and queer people. According to its own account, the project sees the German healthcare system as discriminatory and wants to bring together traditional and conventional treatments.

There was a protest after the searches. Maik Brückner, queer policy spokesman for the Left parliamentary group in the Bundestag, called the process “shameful” and called for clarification. "The federal government is not making any progress in closing a regulatory gap that is currently making it more difficult for trans people to receive hormone preparations for their transition from doctors' offices and to have the costs reimbursed by statutory health insurance companies," explained Brückner.

Criticism also came from the Federal Trans* Association: “The raid is an alarming sign of how self-organized health care is being criminalized, while the regular care system is increasingly abandoning trans* and non-binary people.” dpa/nd

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