A neo-Nazi who was convicted when they were a man for inciting hatred has caused outrage after changing their gender to female in a bid to serve the prison sentence in a women’s jail. Marla-Svenja Liebich, previously known as Sven, was sentenced in July 2023 in Germany to one year and six months in prison without parole for extreme right incitement to hatred, defamation, and insult.
But under a new German law, the Self-Determination Act, Liebech has been able to change their gender identity from male to female and now identifies as a woman. Liebech, who appealed against their original sentence and lost, used the stipulation of the Act, which allows a person to alter their gender by a simple personal declaration at a registry office, instead of through the courts. Liebech also changed their first name from a male to a female moniker.
Posting on X Liebech, who has more than 12,000 followers on the platform, wrote they would be giving interviews to the press outside a women’s prison in Saxony when the sentence starts later this month. Across the world, prisoner gender identity has become a controversial subject, with cases in the US involving surgery and recent examples also in the UK.
Liebech wrote: “On August 29, 2025, at 10 pm, I will arrive with my suitcases at Chemnitz Prison.
“From 9 pm, I will be available for interviews in front of the prison, a one-time exception, as I generally do not make myself available to the press.”
Despite the gender change, German media have questioned if Liebech is serious about their new identity. Liebich has since taken legal action against news outlet Der Spiegel, but the complaint was rejected by the German Press Council as unfounded. The BBC reports, Spiegel said the rejection said it was likely Liebech “made the change of civil status in an abusive manner in order to provoke and embarrass the state”.
Liebich has been photographed at far-Right rallies wearing a Nazi-style uniform, with the slogan ‘Sicherheits-Abteilung’, or SA, which was used by Hitler’s stormtrooper division.