BERLIN – Germany’s government agreed to simplify the administrative procedure for people wanting to change genders, a move long demanded by the LGBTQ community, a spokesman for the ruling party said on Saturday. “As a parliamentary group of the [ruling] SPD, we expressly welcome the fact that the law on self-determination is finally moving forward,” Jan Plobner, spokesman for the Social Democrat party on issues concerning transgender people in the Bundestag, told AFP. Under the agreement, which was revealed by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, transgender, intersex and non-binary people will in the future have only to self-declare if they wish to change their first name or gender notation in the civil registry. The procedure had been governed by a law dating from the 1980s that considered trans issues mental illness.