Germany "Neo-Nazi changes gender to serve in women’s prison"

[singthing]

Given the German legislature's bonkers decision last year (that allows 14 year old children to change their names and adults to apply for that for children even younger), let's hope this is their Sturgeon moment.

But more importantly than that, let's hope the female inmates at Chemnitz remain safe from this monstrous man. He'll be easy to spot, what with his full lady-moustache and repellent views.

Main link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/08/20/neo-nazi-changes-gender-serve-womens-prison/
Archive link: https://archive.ph/F7UFn

That's a good idea; the local and regional council to be elected are the ones who set the rules for local public services (unless it's already settled by country / national law), such as access to toilets in public buildings etc.
And then many regions do have prisons, in which case those questions can be asked, too (even if prisons are not governed by local law, having a few politicians asking uncomfortable questions can set things in motion).

This Spiegel Artikel from four weeks ago uses female pronouns throughout

https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/marla-svenja-liebich-rechtsextremistin-kuendigt-verfassungsbeschwerde-an-a-5301787e-fa0d-4ee1-8f89-3929716d9146

There's another piece about the German Minister for the Interior (equivalent to the Home Secretary in the UK) where they are bending over backwards not to use any pronouns for Liebich.

I do not agree with any far right positions, but find it hilarious that it's far right extremists showing the country what a farce the SBG is.

Regarding the looks, Frida Kahlo might have been the inspiration (not that it works).

Agree, @Maerchentante, now they will have to bend over backwards to distinguish who is "serious" and "deserving" and who isn't. That will be an interesting discussion.
But as I wrote about the case of the leftist extremist "Maja T.", the female name is indeed very deceiving. This is the first time I feel really misled as I hadn't followed that case closely until now, and had not realized it's a non-binary person. I'm also astonished about the contrast in how it's handled and discussed in public.

This connects to topic of "not our crimes", too. Will these two people be counted as female extremists (both the leftist and the right-wing?).

now they will have to bend over backwards to distinguish who is "serious" and "deserving" and who isn't.

Nicola Sturgeon just stirred those waters. She said (re "Isla" Bryson) that maybe transes who commit rape or equally awful crimes shouldn't be allowed to be their gender of choice.

The transes are KICKING OFF!!! Trans is not a choice, a right that can be rescinded is not a right, etc etc. Even hardcore transmaidens like NS cannot stick to the message for long, because it is nonsense.

@Charabanc
Yeah, right now Germany has it's Isla Bryson-moment, though this guy was sentenced due to neo nazi activities; a different category of crime.

Finally the TAZ decided to report on this, though only in a comment, not a news article.
https://taz.de/Kritik-am-Selbstbestimmungsgesetz/!6106300&s/

They are trying to make out this is a sock puppet activity

But the conclusion is still hopeless:
"Die Sache ist jedoch: das Selbstbestimmungsgesetz ist nicht das Problem. Es ist eine absolute Notwendigkeit für die Rechte einer bereits extrem vulnerablen und marginalisierten Community und muss mit aller Kraft verteidigt werden. Das Problem sind bösartige Menschen wie Liebich, denen es genuin Spaß macht, diese Community und ihre so fragilen Rechte zu torpedieren – und eine queerfeindliche Politik, die dieses Spiel begeistert mitspielt."

translation by me:
"The Self-ID law is not the problem. It is an absolute necessity for the rights of an already vulnerable and marginalized community and needs to be defended with all our might. The problem are evil people like Liebich, for whom this is pure fun to torpedo this community and their very fragile rights - and politics who see queer as the enemy and play their [Liebich etc] game".

They are trying very much to paint this into a corner and to have "good people" and "bad people" who use this right, not seeing that it doesn't work that way, either it is valid for everyone who is mentioned in this law or not. Also they only put the fault towards the people who they claim are misusing it and do not reflect on the lawmakers who did not listen to advice from critics, i.e. the lawmakers were made aware of the problems, it was not an unknown or unforseen entity, and they still went ahead.

There are some threads here from earlier months / the past two years (?) where Self-ID in Germany was discussed, for anyone who missed it and is interested in more background.

Liebich didn't arrive at the prison he was supposed to when his time started (today or yesterday). Liebich absconded and is suspected to be in another country.

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/liebich-haftantritt-fahndung-100.html

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/behoerden-suchen-rechtsextremisten-marla-svenja-liebich-a-b3a8768c-a3a1-4c08-b3f3-488d3165b1ca

Since the fucker is clearly trolling, will His next stunt be to try and claim political asylum for persecution of his beliefs in wherever he rocks up

Interesting, Tagesschau uses female pronouns throughout, Spiegel uses male ones.

Article in The Telegraph

Neo-Nazi vanishes after changing gender to serve sentence in women’s prison

Der Spiegel sailing close to the wind, there.

Remind me again what the fine is for misgendering those who have officially registered a new gender?

IIRC it could be up to 10000€, they could have done the whole piece without using any pronouns, they chose not to.

I bet he's shaved that moustache off!

The "Spiegel" article contains the info that Liebich's complaint at the media oversight committee was refused and Liebich also retracted other legal complaints.

"Viele Medien, auch der SPIEGEL, hatten über seinen früheren Vornamen »Sven« und seine Vergangenheit als männlicher Neonazi berichtet. Liebich forderte unter anderem Schmerzensgeld wegen angeblicher Verletzung der Persönlichkeitsrechte als trans Person, zog seine Forderungen aber schlussendlich wieder zurück.

Auch eine Beschwerde beim Presserat verpuffte und wurde einstimmig als unbegründet abgelehnt: Es sei wahrscheinlich, dass Liebich »die Änderung des Personenstands in missbräuchlicher Art und Weise vorgenommen hat, um zu provozieren und den Staat vorzuführen«. Auch deshalb hat sich der SPIEGEL entschieden, Liebich beim männlichen Pronomen zu nennen."

(translation by me)
"Many media, including "Der Spiegel", reported about his previous first name "Sven" and his past as male neo-nazi. Liebich demanded, amongst other things, compensation due to this affecting his rights as a trans person but later retracted these.
A complaint at the media oversight committee was dismissed. The comittee said it was "likely that the change in the register was misused to provoke and ridicule the state". This is another reason why "Der Spiegel" decided to use male pronouns."

Thus the complaint was dismissed because the comittee who is responsible for media standards and ethics decided about who applies self-ID correctly and who doesn't. I learned so much from the discussions about the UK and media and pronouns, and I would say something similar applies here: this media committee cannot actually decide about who is "really" trans and who isn't. That's not in the Self-ID law. The committee can of course decide about this media matter but not outside of this realm.

So the stunt works, because now politicians are scrabbling to refine the law.

Liebich's Twix account says he's in Russia 😆and wants to apply for asylum either in the US or Russia.
(don't want to link but you can easily find it - there are several but one is active and has a note that several users are posting).

I had read about a hint regarding Moscow this morning and wondered whether Liebich travelled through Hungary.

Another legal issue is that Germany also has Freedom-of-Speech laws which have to be balanced with other laws.
Anything people say and someone complains about thus have to be checked for context, it is not clear cut right away.
A journalist of a right-wing / extremely conservative media portal was taken to court by saying Liebich was a man in a tweet.
This went to a court in Berlin which said that, yes, the sentence affected Liebich negatively, but the context was a current political debate and the posting was an opinion, not presented as objective fact.
Thus Liebich lost this court case.
The legal publishing house Beck has a background article:
https://rsw.beck.de/aktuell/daily/meldung/detail/lg-berlin-ii-2O35725eV-reichelt-nius-liebich-geschlecht-trans-meinung

I'm torn between feeling a bit disappointed that Germany's self-ID laws aren't being exposed for the absolute farce that they are, and relief for the female prisoners who would have been locked up with a male Nazi.

It's not a surprise that his core concern wasn't making a feminist ally statement about males in women's prisons tho.

His views are irrelevant. The German law is ridiculous. No man should be in a women's prison. It doesn't matter if he's had surgery or is the loveliest man in the world he doesn't belong there.

was moseying around X today and found this (autotranslated by X but seems ok)

NB: the "let women speak" mentioned is the German initiative Lasst Frauen Sprechen. To avoid confusion

I love the 'traffic-light coalition'! it's a great usage.

Just 'plopping' the thought here that there's an inconsistency on this forum shown by this thread. Think about it.

On the one hand you are here pointing out men suddenly claim to be women to get into a women's prison. I.e. they are opportunists.

Sure that seems plausible. Many criminal men would no doubt love or at least prefer to be in a women's prison. Power, control, heterosexual sex in the showers etc.

On the other hand, I see statistics about transwomen in prisons quoted as evidence that they are more dangerous than cis women.

Putting these together you are arguing an unknown number of criminal men fake being trans and that these prison statistics are still accurate representation of the general trans population risk.

Make it make sense. Anyway, as you were...

This isn't exactly a hot take. According to trans activists any man who says he is a woman, is a woman and entitled to be in women's single sex spaces. Suggesting otherwise leads to accusations of bigotry and transphobia. So called prison onset gender dysphoria has been discussed on these threads many times. Lacking a foolproof test for an unverifiable feeling that a man claims, all we have to go by are the stats. These stats show that transwomen in prison in the UK are far more likely to be sex offenders than your bog standard male offender. Are they genuinely trans (whatever that means) or, in the words of Humza Yusaf 'at it'? No-one can reliably say and you're a transphobic, homophobic and probably racist bigot for even thinking about it. According to Nicola Sturgeon you are anyway.

The truth is that there is no way to tell whether someone is faking being transgender or not. There are no biological or neurological markers to use to categorise all people with transgender identities. The only thing that is a commonality is the group’s philosophical belief in their identity which is a belief that doesn’t reflect material reality.

Therefore, society has been told that it must accept any person who says they are transgender as being transgender.

So, the prisoner statistics are treated as all legitimate transgender people. And this neo nazi has to be treated as being legitimately transgender.

Until a test is found, if ever, this is the way it has to be.

yeah, the German short hand for the political parties is ok, until you have SPD, Die Linke and, say, die Grünen. Then you have red red green. :)
Or when all the others are in there smehow and it's a Jamaica coalition

that's not the "gotcha" you think it is. We all say that men are dangerous (as a class) to women (as a class)

And we also say that you can't tell the difference between a man in a dress who says he is a woman, and a man in a dress pretending to be trans.

Both things can be true

Well it's one or the other isn't it?

Either 'transwomen' do have a much higher rate of offending, in which case why the hell is anyone arguing they should be put in women's prisons?

OR

Men are taking advantage of the loop hole to get placed in women's prisons. Though we were told this would never happen, remember? In which case, why are we allowing men to 'identify' into women's spaces with such ease?

Which is it do you think?