The claim

Defense Minister Lambrecht allegedly announced that trans people would not be deployed in the Bundeswehr in the event of war due to the lack of gender-appropriate toilets.

Our conclusion

The claim is a complete fabrication. There is not a single report about it, and various public bodies also contradict the claim.

TikTok seems to be increasingly becoming the hub for old false claims: an older sharepic with a false claim is simply taken and converted into a video - clicks and outrage guaranteed. A current case concerns an alleged claim by Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht about toilets at the front and trans people in the Bundeswehr.

The claim

This sharepic was already circulating in May 2022 and has been shared as a video on TikTok with a small animation for a few days ( HERE , archived HERE ):

The false claim on TikTok
The false claim on TikTok

The video was tagged with hashtags such as #esreich and #realjetzt, and the comments were deactivated. The sharepic says:

“Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced today:
The gender soldiers integrated into the Bundeswehr cannot be deployed in the event of war because there are no gender-appropriate toilets at the front.”

Additional texts on the sharepic are “ Do you know what office you should hold? ", " Resign IMMEDIATELY! Not even usable for sweeping! " and " No, you didn't NOT 'misread' ". Yes, my spelling correction is crying right now too.

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

The claim is a complete invention!

The claim makes it clear that the creator lacks the vocabulary to even express what is being lied about, so let's help: "Gender soldiers" probably mean trans people, while "gender-equitable Toilets” are probably unisex toilets (although a third toilet option was also considered in Bavaria in 2019).

News report: None

It is unclear when “today” should be, because the sharepic has been shared since May 2022. But to this day, not a single news line, not an article, not even a subordinate clause can be found in which it is reported that Christine Lambrecht is said to have announced this.

What various places say about the claim

The colleagues from AFP dug a little deeper and asked in various places whether there might not be such a regulation within the Bundeswehr. Here are the answers:

  • The Federal Association of Trans* : The association has no knowledge of such a regulation that prohibits the use of trans or intersex people in war
  • A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense: The claim is of course a false report. “We demand and promote an appreciative and open climate within the armed forces, of course also towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.”
  • A spokeswoman for the Armed Forces Commissioner of the Bundestag : “We have no information of our own about the claim you mentioned.”
  • Anastasia Biefang, first transgender commander in the Bundeswehr and deputy chairwoman of QueerBW : “As far as we know, the statement is a 'fake'. Ms. Lambrecht did not make this statement. Transgender soldiers are certainly deployed on missions. Gender-appropriate toilets are not a prerequisite for the deployment of soldiers on the “front.”

Conclusion

There is not a single report that Christine Lambrecht announced that trans people could not be deployed in the event of war, and various public bodies also contradict the claim. It appears to have been invented for the sole purpose of feeding the belief that trans people get “special treatment.”

It is therefore a pure false claim.


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