The spiral of silence around transgender interventions has been broken – confirmed by the courts

How I defended the right to public debate before two German courts

Photo by Am on Unsplash

I have once again prevailed in the legal proceedings that Sabine Maur has been pursuing against me since the beginning of this year. At the appeal hearing before the Berlin Court of Appeal (Kammergericht), the judges signalled that Ms Maur would lose on all counts. She thereupon withdrew her appeal during the hearing. The judgment of the Regional Court of Berlin II (Landgericht Berlin II) is now final and binding. Ms Maur must bear the full costs of the appeal proceedings.

With this success, I have defended my goal: to break the spiral of silence surrounding transgender interventions and the practices of the professionals and officials responsible for them in Germany.

Defending public debate on transgender interventions

Sabine Maur, former Vice President of the German Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists and former President of the Chamber of Psychotherapists of Rhineland-Palatinate, had applied to the Regional Court of Berlin II at the beginning of the year for a preliminary injunction against me – over a tweet about her medical certification practices and my sharing of a video from a professional training webinar.

She had already lost three quarters of those first proceedings. Remarkably, she could have achieved her purported goal without any judgment at all: the court had proposed a settlement that would have obliged me to delete both the tweet and the video. I was prepared to do so – the public debate about her conduct was already underway through media coverage, without any involvement on my part. My own thread had barely any reach.

Maur, however, refused and demanded a judgment. In that judgment, the court found: the video recording of her webinar presentation is a document of contemporary history of paramount public interest. It may be distributed. My criticism of her certification practices is lawful. Three quarters of the costs of the proceedings were imposed on her.

She subsequently resigned from her offices as Vice President of the Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists and as President of the Chamber of Psychotherapists of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Nevertheless, she filed an appeal against the judgment with the Berlin Court of Appeal. I then filed a cross-appeal in order to reclaim the single statement that the Regional Court had prohibited.

Various parties had accused me of running a “transphobic hate campaign”, claimed that my motivation was hatred of “trans people”, and labelled my criticism of those responsible for gender-affirming interventions as “medical harassment”. None of these accusations were borne out before either court: the Regional Court of Berlin II examined my statements on their merits and declared them lawful. The press and media law senate of the Court of Appeal indicated that it would have ruled in my favour even on the last remaining point.

The “transphobic hate campaign” – legitimate public discussion in the tradition of Wallraff’s investigative journalism

The presiding judge examined every aspect of the dispute in detail. Based on the course of the hearing, the senate indicated that the appeal would likely be dismissed in its entirety and that my cross-appeal would likely succeed.

Regarding the further distribution of the video, the senate placed the case in the tradition of investigative journalism: the relevant statutory exception in Section 201(2), sentence 3 of the German Criminal Code was created in 1990, following proceedings against the investigative journalist Günter Wallraff. The Federal Constitutional Court had ruled that it must be possible to expose wrongdoing even where doing so breaches the confidentiality of the spoken word. The precondition is a certain threshold of gravity.

The senate considered that threshold to be met here: Maur had been a prominent voice and a representative of her professional association, and she had participated in drafting a clinical treatment guideline. Against this background, her statements in the webinar were of paramount public interest. I did not commit a criminal offence by sharing the video.

The senate also assessed my statement that Maur conveys affirmation as the sole treatment option as a lawful – if pointed – expression of opinion. In doing so, it referred to the guideline co-authored by Maur herself, which classifies therapeutic approaches aimed at steering a patient towards a particular gender as unethical, as well as to Maur’s own public statements and written submissions.

Particularly noteworthy was the senate’s characterisation of how my statements are to be understood: not as a degradation of the person, but as pointed criticism of a treatment and certification practice that Maur herself had described in the webinar.

I did not insult Sabine Maur, hold her up to contempt, or attack her as a person. I criticised, pointedly, what she does and what she recommends to others. Pointed exaggeration is the good right of any expression of opinion, and substantive criticism is not defamation. Two courts have now confirmed this.

Even with regard to the one statement the Regional Court had prohibited, the senate indicated that it considers it lawful – regardless of whether it is viewed in the context of the video or on its own. My cross-appeal would likely have been granted.

Defending the debate before two courts

Following the senate’s explanations, a lengthy address by counsel for the applicant, and two recesses – the last for a telephone consultation with Maur – her side withdrew the appeal.

The consequences: the judgment of the Regional Court of Berlin II is final and binding. The findings made there – on contemporary history, on the public interest, on Maur’s conduct – are now definitive. My cross-appeal will no longer be decided; it was tied to the main appeal and lapsed with its withdrawal. Under Section 516 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, Maur bears the full costs of the appeal proceedings.

I was taken before two courts by Ms Maur, and I successfully defended my goal: public debate about her conduct and about transgender medicine is permitted.

Officials of transgender medicine must face public debate – confirmed by the courts

A look back at six months: in January 2026, I shared a video that had been publicly available online for four months, and commented on it. Sabine Maur sent me a cease-and-desist letter. I did not sign. She applied for a preliminary injunction. The Regional Court proposed a settlement – I was willing, she refused and demanded a judgment. She lost on the substance and resigned from her offices. She appealed. The senate of the Court of Appeal indicated that she would lose entirely. She withdrew.

Two courts have examined my statements. Neither attested hatred, neither a campaign, neither denigration. What was examined was the substance – and the substance held. The video showing a chamber official explaining to colleagues how to omit a billing-relevant detail from submissions to health insurers may be seen by the public. The public, according to the final judgment, has a right to see it.

Anyone who continues to call my work a “hate campaign” is no longer arguing against me, but against two German courts.

This success is a success shared by many

These proceedings could only be endured because many people carried them with me – and my legal defence fundraiser alone showed how many people have a stake in my defending this debate. I thank everyone who donated to my legal defence fund at Frauenheldinnen, everyone who shared my appeal and encouraged me, Frauenheldinnen e.V. and Eva Engelken, whose organisation made this support possible, the media outlets that spoke with me and reported on the issue, and my lawyer Dr Roman Lammers, who conducted these proceedings through two instances with the utmost precision.

The battle over the narrative of “transgender medicine”, its actors and those responsible in Germany, over the protection of the physical integrity of women and girls, over ethics in medicine, and over public health insurance funding of questionable interventions is not over. But one thing is now legally established: it may be fought in public.

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