Zürcher Nachrichten - German neo-Nazi heads for women's jail after gender change

Marla-Svenja Liebich, 54, has been sentenced to 18 months at the Chemnitz prison for offences including incitement to racial hatred and slander.

At the time of sentencing in 2023, the defendant was called Sven Liebich but legally changed gender after Germany last year passed an identity law called the Self-Determination Act.

The move by Liebich, who started wearing lipstick, golden earrings and a leopard print top, was widely seen as intended to mock the law and perhaps obtain easier prison conditions.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that "the judiciary, the public and politicians are being made fools of here because the Self-Determination Act offers the opportunity to do so."

The conservative minister said Germany needed to have "a debate about how clear rules against the abuse of gender reassignment can be established".

Liebich has been a high-profile figure in eastern Germany's right-wing extremist scene for decades and used to be a member of the banned Blood and Honour group, according to German media reports.

He also ran a business that sold products online that are popular with xenophobic groups, including a baseball bat with the slogan "deportation assistant".

In 2022 he disrupted an LGBTQ pride parade in the city of Halle, calling the participants "parasites on society", according to activists.

Liebich has also claimed to have converted to Judaism and requested kosher meals and rabbinical supervision in prison.

Germany's antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein, condemned the move as making "a mockery not only of Jews, but of all religious people, regardless of their faith".

- 'Right-wing agitators' -

The Self-Determination Act was introduced by Germany's last government under centre-left chancellor Olaf Scholz and hailed as "historic" by the LGBTQ community.

It allows any adult to change their name and gender by making a simple application to their local registry office, without having to provide a reason or any medical information.

Before this, Germans who wanted to change their legal gender had to submit two psychological reports and wait for a court decision.

The advocacy group Bundesverband Trans called the change "a significant and fundamental step towards recognising trans and non-binary people as a natural and equal part of society".

But critics voiced fears the new law could be abused by predatory men to gain easy access to spaces reserved for women and girls.

Germany's new coalition government, led by the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, has pledged to review the law.

The family affairs minister, Karin Prien, said the law in its current form "contains weaknesses that could encourage targeted abuse".

Germany must now "closely observe how the law proves itself in practice", she said.

LGBTQ activists argue that repealing the law would lead to more discrimination.

"For transgender people, there is a risk that some of what trans activism has achieved over the past 15 years will be reversed," the Queer Nations campaign group said.

In the Liebich case, prosecution spokesman Benedikt Bernzen said the decision to send the convict to the Chemnitz women's jail was based on their "registered gender and place of residence".

However, "in all cases an individual review is carried out" once a prisoner is admitted, he told AFP.

A prison spokeswoman said she could not comment on individual cases but added that all decisions on incarceration are "made on a case-by-case basis".

"The protection of other, especially weaker prisoners from assaults by other prisoners is an important factor in deciding whether to place them in a women's or men's prison," she added.

The queer rights commissioner Sophie Koch told Die Zeit weekly that there was no legal compulsion to keep Liebich in a women's prison and warned against "falling for the tricks of right-wing agitators".

M.J.Baumann--NZN