The German government is now backtracking on the Marla-Svenja Liebich case ahead of the convicted activist starting his sentence in the Chemnitz Women’s Prison. Liebich was sentenced for incitement to hatred, slander, and insult. The right-wing provocateur’s stunts have earned him a total of a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
At his court appearance, the accused—then known as Sven Liebich—showed up looking comical and outrageous and argued that because of his gender change, he now demanded to be addressed as Marla-Svenja instead of Sven and be placed into the women’s prison. The court allowed the request, proving just how absurd the German system is.
According to the Self-Determination Act, the court should place anyone in a women’s ward who identifies as a woman. No medical examination, no biological sex change—nothing is required to be transferred. This obviously poses a huge risk to female detainees.
Liebich’s stunt was successful. He showed just how easy it is to play this appalling system. But the government’s answer may be even more ridiculous. While there were public calls to deny the transfer of the right-wing activist, the court system pushed through with their agenda, creating a massive fallout with even their own supporters.
Left-wing activists shifted the blame onto Liebich instead of admitting these are the logical consequences of a misguided law. “The Liebich case does not show the danger of the Self-Determination Act, but the danger posed by right-wing extremists,” said one of the progressive commentators.
Despite this, Liebich’s gambit worked with overwhelming success at showing the cracks of an unjust, easy-to-play system—and the government is now backtracking. The Federal Ministry of Justice stated there may be ways to revise his sentence and not put him into women’s jail after all.
“When dealing with trans, intersex, and non-binary prisoners, states do not have to base their decisions solely on the person’s gender entry,” said a spokesman for the ministry. She added, “The Basic Law and the institution’s duty of care require that the security interests and personal rights of all prisoners be taken into account when arranging their accommodation.”
The German state is now finding loopholes in their own law as a way to justify their backtracking on their own inane decisions. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) said there “clearly appears to be an act of abuse here,” as he accused Liebich of exploiting the system—a system created by woke progressive politicians who were told ahead of time, by women’s rights groups as well as jurists, that this is exactly what would happen—but pushed the law through anyway.
