AfD Sachsen-Anhalt 2026: A Platform That Tries to Make My Family Invisible

Off with their heads... they would probably like that

I am sitting at our dining table. My younger daughter is lying in the next room, in pain after a sports accident. My older daughter is at the university right now. My wife is still at work. The cat is sleeping on the sunchair, and the tomcat is stretched out on the bench on the balcony. It is a perfectly ordinary day. A perfectly ordinary family.

I do not live in Saxony-Anhalt. But the new AfD government platform in Saxony-Anhalt affects me too. Because I know how this works. What is adopted today as a platform plank in one state chapter will show up tomorrow in the next state party and the day after that in the federal election platform. Ideas travel. Especially bad ideas spread with alarming speed.

So I took the time to read parts of the platform. Not because I am a masochist, although after reading it one could certainly become one, but because I want to know what a party that is seriously seeking to govern has in mind for me, my wife, and our daughters.

The short answer: nothing good.

"Normative normality": when the state decides what a family is

The platform leaves no room for ambiguity from the very beginning. The AfD demands that

"marriage between a man and a woman, from which children arise, must be recognized and especially supported by politics as normative normality."

Normative normality. It sounds scientific, but it is simply ideology. It is a political declaration that my family is not a real family. That two women raising two children, loving them, and carrying them through life’s ups and downs does not constitute a fully valid unit but at best a deviation from the supposed norm that may be tolerated.

And if there were any doubt left, the platform explicitly opposes "the state promotion and support of alternative lifestyles." What the AfD calls "alternative" is simply reality for my family.

Single parents do at least get a brief mention, but only as an emergency, not as a choice. The platform

"firmly opposes"

any attempt to present single-parent families as a "normal, progressive, or even desirable model of life." So anyone who consciously raises children alone, anyone whose family looks different from father-mother-child, gets a clear message from the state: you are doing something wrong.

"Early sexualization": the big phrase for a whole lot of nothing

One of the most aggressive sections of the platform deals with what the AfD calls "early sexualization." More specifically, it means children in daycare centers and elementary schools being allowed to learn that different family structures exist. A daycare materials kit from the state government, which according to the platform "calls the normality of the family concept into question to some extent," is framed as an attack on children.

The AfD writes:

"The goal of these campaigns is not only to achieve greater acceptance for every form of 'alternative lifestyle.' Rather, the most varied forms of non-normal gender identities or deviant sexual preferences are practically being promoted and brought to the awareness of children in kindergarten or elementary school. That is intrusive and goes too far!"

"Non-normal gender identities." "Deviant sexual preferences." I am a trans woman. According to that logic, my identity is "non-normal" and "deviant." And the fact that my daughter knows who her daddy is counts as "early sexualization."

I need a moment to breathe.

My daughter calls me Daddy. That was her name for me before I came out, and she kept it. Because it belongs to her, because it carries our story, and because it is quite simply her right. I explained to her who I am and why I look different now than I used to. She was curious, but at the end of the day the only thing that mattered was that I remained who I am.

That is not indoctrination. That is parenting. That is family.

The AfD announces that it will "end all state campaigns and programs that confront children before puberty with sexual topics." That may sound reasonable, until you understand that according to this definition, the mere existence of my family already counts as a "sexual topic."

Being trans as a "disorder": pathologization as policy

As a trans woman, one part of the platform resonates with me particularly strongly. Under the heading "No puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormone therapies for children and adolescents," the AfD writes:

"More and more children are suffering from so-called ‘gender dysphoria,’ that is, a disorder in which they are unable to identify with their own sex. This trend is being fueled by the trans lobby and organizations devoted to rainbow ideology."

And further:

"We demand a return to a responsible approach to mental disorders instead of a romanticizing normalization!"

There it is. Plain as day. For the AfD, trans identity is a "mental disorder," fueled by some mysterious "trans lobby." So according to that logic, I am the result of a disorder and ideological influence. Not a woman who knows who she is. Not a mother. Not Daddy. A mental disorder.

That is not a political disagreement. That is hatred dressed up with footnotes.

Turning off the money: if you do not fit the picture, you get nothing

Especially insidious is the announcement to strip funding from organizations involved in what the platform calls "perverse left-wing agitation." In its exact wording:

"To counter this, we will withdraw every form of public funding and tax privilege from associations and organizations that participate in such agitation."

What is "perverse left-wing agitation"? In the context of this platform, it means educational work on LGBTQIA* issues, queer youth counseling, anti-discrimination work, projects for rainbow families. All of that is intended to lose public support.

At the same time, projects that promote "families" in the AfD sense are to receive preferential funding. The state would therefore actively decide: this family is worthy of support. That one is not.

For queer young people who find no support in their families of origin and depend on counseling centers, the consequences would be concrete and life-changing. And because this way of thinking does not stop at state borders, it is a threat that concerns everyone.

Language as a weapon

The platform bans gender-inclusive language throughout all official usage. Schools, courts, ministries, local administrations, parliament. Everywhere, only "traditional spellings" are to remain. The AfD even announces that it will issue its own directive

"that avoids all forms motivated by feminist ideology or gender ideology."

That sounds like a language police force in the opposite direction, and that is exactly what it is. Once people are removed from official language, they begin to disappear from public consciousness. Language is not neutral. Language decides who is visible and who is not.

And the AfD has very clear ideas about who should not be visible.

Today Saxony-Anhalt, tomorrow everywhere

I do not live in Saxony-Anhalt. But I would be naive to think that protects me.

Party platforms are blueprints. They do not only describe what is planned in one state. They also describe where a party as a whole wants to go. The AfD platform in Saxony-Anhalt is detailed, consistent, and ideologically coherent. It is not an outlier. It is a trial balloon.

My daughter is growing up in a country where this party already holds political power in some places and is, in some cases, the second strongest force nationwide. She is growing up in a country where, according to a party platform, her Daddy has a "mental disorder." Where her family is not considered a family worth supporting. Where teachers and educators are supposed to be bound to "strict political neutrality," which in practice means silence about everything that does not fit the approved picture.

One final word

Why should I have to defend my existence? Why should I have to make arguments for why my family is a family? I am tired of reading a platform that describes the people I love and me with words like "perverse," "deviant," and "non-normal," while at the same time wrapping itself in the language of "democracy" and "civil liberty."

But I do it anyway. Because silence is not an option. Because my daughter should see that you stand up.

And because Saxony-Anhalt votes on September 6.

Yours, Lizbeth

Source: AfD Regierungsprogramm Sachsen-Anhalt 2026, afd-regierungsprogramm.de, abgerufen April 2026