The German federal state of Saxony has released records on the amount of trans-identified males housed in women’s prisons, but only after demanding an egregious €1,100 fee. The effort, spearheaded by Let Women Speak, revealed that a number of male sex offenders were being housed with women.
In May of 2024, Initiative “Let Women Speak” (Lasst Frauen Sprechen) began to file Freedom of Information requests requesting data on the amount of males being housed with women in various state facilities across Germany. Most of the states responded with data which indicated that trans-identified males had been transferred to women’s prisons far ahead of any federal law requiring them to be accommodated according to their “gender identity.”
The Ministry of Justice in Saxony, a region led by the pro-trans Green Party, was the only federal state which demanded a prohibitive fee of €1,100 to access the records. As a result, Let Women Speak was forced to withdraw their request and requested local assistance in getting the information.
In response to their call for help, right-wing political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) submitted an inquiry asking how many individuals with a “deviating gender identity” had been imprisoned in the state of Saxony since January 2020. The Ministry of Justice responded to their request, admitting that there were nine people with “deviating gender identities” in their facilities. However, they did not provide any information about what sex these people are or where they had been accommodated. The Ministry further revealed that inmates who legally changed their gender identity prior to being imprisoned would not be recorded as having a “deviating gender identity.”
German outlet NiUS also facilitated a request for similar information and received a response from the Ministry of Justice in Saxony indicating that three males had been housed at the Chemnitz correctional facility for women between 2023 and 2024. The inmates had criminal records indicating assault, sexual assault, sexual harassment and assault on law enforcement officers. One of them was convicted of rape.
While the identities of the men are not known, multiple female inmates have come forward this year to report that they had been housed with a sexually abusive trans-identified man in Chemnitz.
According to the women, who spoke to Freie Presse earlier this year, the trans-identified male inmate repeatedly ambushed them during activities and was aggressive, verbally abusive and threatened to beat them.
The man had also reportedly forced the women, including female correctional officers, to watch him masturbate. According to Freie Presse, he was eventually transferred back to the men’s prison.
In another incident out of Chemnitz, a trans-identified man identified as Jan Daniel K. almost murdered a female correctional officer by strangulation. According to BILD, Jan Daniel was a violent criminal and pimp who had been sentenced to 13 years in prison for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. He declared himself “female” during his sentencing hearing, and was transferred to a women’s prison shortly after.
Jan Daniel targeted the female correctional officer after being penalized by her, and took his revenge by dragging her into his cell during routine checks and strangling her. It is unclear whether he was transferred back to the male estate or was allowed to remain in the women’s facility.
Despite there being several known problems in Chemnitz as a result of male inmates being moved in, the Saxon Green Party initiated a change to the state’s prison law in December 2023 intended to further satisfy “trans inmates.”
The draft of the law states its intention is to improve the treatment of “transsexual, intersex and non-binary prisoners” and “prisoners with diverse or no sex marker” in their legal documents. The law includes “sexual identity” as a protected characteristic, thus removing the principle of separation between male and female inmates as soon as a detainee proclaims he is a “woman.”
The law would further strengthen Germany’s already-radical gender Self-Determination Act (SBGG), which came into force November 1. The SBGG allows individuals to change their name and sex with few restrictions and imposes harsh punishments for those who fail to treat individuals in accordance with their self-declared gender identity.
Speaking to Reduxx, Hanna-Katarina Zippel of Let Women Speak said that she was “shocked” with the information released by the Ministry of Justice in Saxony, which demonstrated that the government was moving men into women’s prisons even before they were legally obligated to.
“It was shocking to learn that so many men were already being held in women’s prisons even before the self-identification law came into force. At the same time, however, the fact that so many media outlets and also some politicians took up our research shows me that it was worth making the inquiry to begin with,” she said.
“In order to fight for the withdrawal of self-identification law, it is crucial to educate people, especially women, about what it really means for them and to show them real-life examples. I hope that with our research we have reached many people who were not aware of the consequences of the new German self-ID law and that we have encouraged many people to speak out critically, so that hopefully one day no woman will have to endure being incarcerated with a man anymore.”
Despite female inmates having come forward about abuses they have suffered, all 16 federal state ministries deny that any sexual assaults have taken place in female facilities as a result of trans-identified males being housed with women.
René Müller, Federal Chairman of the Association of Prison Officers in Germany, has publicly expressed doubts about the official information. Speaking to Die Welt, Müller said that not every incident would have been recorded or reported by those affected. In its response to the AfD, the Ministry of Justice in Saxony also admitted that the sexual abuse or harassment of female inmates by trans-identified males would not be recorded.
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