Precarious Recognition. The "Third Sex" from the perspective of Christian Social Ethics

我们项目的起点是德国宪法法院2017年10月关于引入“第三性别”的决定（1 BvR 2019/16），该决定要求修改民事身份法。从基督教社会伦理和哲学的角度，该项目关注这些法律的变化的社会影响。它分析了两个主要问题下正在进行的政治和社会辩论：哪些新的社会冲突产生的承认，以及如何才能神学伦理有助于与这些冲突的生产性参与？作为一个批判性反思的论坛，社会伦理将特别关注天主教会，因为教会是一个社会行为者，参与了围绕“第三性”的承认斗争。立法进程于2018年12月产生了第一个结果，但这并不标志着这是一种承认（成功或失败），但却是对正在进行的和新触发的社会进程进行必要反思的起点。（到目前为止，法律上有效的）变化是更大发展的一部分，其中包括为同性伴侣建立民事伴侣关系，同性伴侣的婚姻平等，宪法法院对《变性人法》（TSG）的裁决以及2013年对公民身份法的第一次犹豫不决的改革。一般来说，这种发展涉及到法律的处理方式的灵活化和自由化，如性/性别、身份、性行为、伙伴关系和家庭，上述法律的变化提出了新的问题，这些问题不能从法律的系统内回答，这些问题也涉及到天主教会作为社会行为者的自我概念。在这种情况下，我们想问天主教会如何能够在其自身的道德和形而上学传统的框架内参与这些变化，这种传统基于对性/性别的二元和互补理解，以及它如何能够为正在进行的社会承认进程做出建设性贡献。一个特别的重点将是如何在教会内部进行这些承认的冲突的问题。这些冲突分析的基础上朱迪思巴特勒的工作理论的承认，这使我们能够概念化的承认作为一个开放的过程，没有一个固定的目的成功的承认。关于性和性别概念的世界观的潜在差异将与路德维希·弗莱克的思想风格分析进行审查。

The starting point of our project was the October 2017 decision of the German Constitutional Court (1 BvR 2019/16) regarding the introduction of a “third sex”, which mandated changes to the civil status law. From the perspective of Christian social ethics and philosophy, the project focuses on the social effects of these legal changes. It analyzes the ongoing political and social debate under two leading questions: Which new social conflicts are produced by recognition, and how can theological ethics contribute to a productive engagement with these conflicts? As a forum of critical reflection, social ethics will focus in particular on the Catholic Church, insofar as the church is a social actor involved in the struggles for recognition surrounding the “third sex”. The legislative process, which produced first results in December 2018, does not mark not the end point of (successful or failed) recognition, but the starting point for necessary reflection on ongoing and newly triggered social processes.The mandated (and by now, legally valid) changes are part of a larger development, which includes the creation of civil partnerships for same-sex couples, marriage equality for same-sex couples, the Constitutional Court’s decisions on the Law on Transsexuals (TSG) and the first, hesitant reform of civil status law in 2013. This development concerns, generally speaking, a flexibilization and liberalization of the legal treatment of categories liked sex/gender, identity, sexuality, partnership, and family.The aforementioned legal changes raise new questions, which cannot be answered from within the legal system – and these also concern the self-conception of the Catholic Church as a social actor. In this context, we want to ask how the Catholic Church can engage with these changes from within the framework of its own ethical and metaphysical tradition, which is grounded in a binary and complementary understanding of sex/gender, and how it might offer constructive contributions to the ongoing process of social recognition. A particular focus will be on the question how these conflicts of recognition are carried out within the church. These conflicts are analyzed on the basis of Judith Butler’s work on theories of recognition, which allows us to conceptualize recognition as an open-ended process without a fixed telos of successful recognition. The underlying differences in world-views concerning the concepts of sex and gender will be examined with Ludwik Fleck’s thought-style analysis.