From Muslim to Trans “Predators” – How Right-Winged Media Is Constructing a New Discourse on the Endangerment of the “German Woman”

On New Year’s Eve 2015 Germany was shocked when several hundred migrants from North Africa rioted in Cologne. This horrendous event where many people were harmed and women sexually assaulted gave rise to radical anti-migrant and anti-Muslim discourses, promoted by the far right. A common enemy was constructed: Muslim male migrants. For many years the image of racialized predators was refined and scholars have taken on the challenge to analyse the lines of arguments, concluding with the concept of femonationalism. Albeit anti-migration and anti-Muslim perspectives are still dominant in German media, especially in right-winged media, a new group has emerged that challenges this traditioned belief.

When the German parliament passed the novel Self-Determination Law with Regard to Gender Registration, anti-transgender sentiments gained unprecedented popularity. How does this relate to femonationalism? A Critical Discourse Analysis of German populist media sites showed that the lines of argument presented in femonationalist anti-migrant discourses are applied in the context of transgender rights. Both migrants and transgender persons are being othered and by that constructed outside of the normal population. While migrants are not recognized as part of German society and hence othered as the unreal population, transgender persons are denied their gender identity and depreciated as unreal genders. Each group is presented as predators, endangering women and society by dismantling established cultural norms. The alleged dangers emanating from transgender persons resemble the idea of Muslim migrants attempting to Islamise the Western European world. Furthermore, male migrants and transwomen are constructed as predators to white European women albeit the evidence only has cloud when rationalization and mythopoesis are applied. The concept of femonationalism allows for in-depth analysis of various contexts and need not be reduced to anti-migration discourse as the issue of transgender and queerness in general will gain more attention in coming years.