German court rules transsexual woman can’t be ‘mother’

BERLIN – Germany’s top court has ruled that a transsexual woman whose frozen sperm was used to fertilize an egg can only be registered as the child’s father.

The Federal Court said Thursday it rejected the woman’s appeal against a lower court ruling preventing her from being legally listed as the child’s mother.

The woman changed sex in 2012 and her partner gave birth to a child three years later, having used the plaintiff’s sperm.

The registry office refused to list the sperm donor as the mother.

The Federal Court said judges concluded “the transsexual person’s fundamental rights aren’t breached by the fact that existing ancestry law assigns her the legal status of parent according to her former sex and the specific contribution to procreation that resulted from this.”