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Change of first name and/or gender entry for trans*, inter* and non-binary students

Trans*, inter* and non-binary students can change their first name and/or gender entry at the University of Göttingen upon request. No court order or civil registry certificate is required for this. The change applies to internal university matters (e.g. student e-mail address, information in eCampus, Stud.IP, FlexNow) as well as to the issuing of certificates (e.g. certificate of enrolment, transcripts of records). With the change, your master data will be overwritten. Links to your official name can then only be established via the application form stored in your student file.

Exception: Students in degree programs for which the Faculty of Medicine is responsible are unfortunately not yet able to take advantage of this regulation. This procedure is also not available to employees at the moment.

How does the procedure work?

The procedure differs depending on whether you are already studying at the University of Göttingen or would like to enroll for your studies first:

Please first follow the procedures for application and enrolment, more information can be found at www.uni-goettingen.de/bewerbung. Please complete the required online forms, still using your official name and gender entry.
When applying for enrolment, you can then announce the desired change(s) using the form „Declaration of Change of First Name and/or Gender Entry at the University of Göttingen (pdf)“. To do this, you only need to upload the completed, signed and scanned form to the portal together with the other documents required for enrolment.
We will implement the requested change at the same time as your enrolment, so that your new first name(s) and/or gender entry will be included in the master data of the student administration and thus automatically transferred to all other IT systems that use this master data.

The change must first be announced using the form „Declaration of change of first name and/or gender entry at the University of Göttingen (pdf)“ vorgenommen werden. Please send us the completed and signed form as a scan (pdf) to infoline-studium@uni-goettingen.de.

The Service Office Student Affairs will implement the change: Your new first name(s) and/or gender entry will be added to the master data of the student administration and thus automatically changed in all other IT systems that use this master data.

As soon as the change has been implemented, we will notify you so that you can then have the following changes made if you wish:

  • New student ID: After the student office has confirmed that the conversion has been made, you can have a new ID issued at the Office of Student Affairs. To do so, you must show a photo ID and the completed and signed form (or a copy of it) once and pay eight euros in cash. The opening hours of the study centre and service times for the replacement chip card can be found here.
  • Change of e-mail address and account: The StudIT team can create a new student email address for you if you wish. Please follow the instructions on this page (in German).
  • to do so.
  • Certificates: You can create all your certificates, such as the certificate of enrolment (Immatrikulationsbescheinigung), yourself at any time after the change using the self-service functions in eCampus.
  • In the standard university services, such as StudIP, FlexNow, BBB and Zoom, all your new master data will be automatically transferred. However, you may have to trigger changes in other services yourself (e.g. special services of the GWDG).


Background

The basis of the procedure is the "Guideline for changing the first name and/or gender entry of trans*, inter* and non-binary students at the University of Göttingen" adopted by the Presidential Board (see issue of Official Notes I No. 17/2023). It serves to transparently regulate and safeguard the various procedures for changing first names and gender entries implemented at the University of Göttingen.

The guideline sets out:

  • the procedure for changing one's first name and/or gender entry without a court order or civil status certificate at the time of enrolment (section 1) and during studies (section 2), and
  • the already established and practiced procedures for changing one's first name and/or gender entry by court order according to the provisions of the "Transsexuellengesetz" (TSG) or by civil status certificate according to § 45b of the "Personenstandsgesetz" (PStG) during studies (section 3) or after studies (section 4).

The change overwrites the master data. Links to the official name can then only be established via the form used for the application. This form is stored in the student file. It contains, among other things, the matriculation number, official name, place and date of birth. This ensures that the University can fulfil its obligation to locate people (data) in the event of government enquiries.



Feedback

We want to make our administrative procedures as service-friendly as possible. If you have any suggestions or feedback for us during the process, please feel free to send it to: daniela.marx@zvw.uni-goettingen.de.