BGH: Paternity Recognition by Trans Man Invalid, reports rechtsanwalt.com

Trans men who were legally registered as female at the time of a child’s birth cannot be recognized as the child’s legal father, the Federal Court of Justice ruled in a decision published on October 8, 2026. reported that the case centers on an August 19, 2026, ruling by the court’s twelfth civil senate under docket number XII ZB 456/25.

The Court Case From Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

The legal dispute originated in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern after a child was born in November 2014, queer.de reported. At the time of the birth, the child’s mother lived with a trans man who was subsequently recognized under the law as belonging to the male gender in 2015. In 2016, the mother agreed to allow her partner to acknowledge the paternity, and he was listed as the father in the birth register while both parents signed joint custody declarations.

After the couple separated, the mother filed a request at the Stralsund District Court in 2023 to have the paternity acknowledgment declared invalid, ndr.de noted. Both the Stralsund District Court and the Rostock Higher Regional Court initially rejected the mother’s application, pointing to section 1598, paragraph 2 of the German Civil Code, which rules that an acknowledgment becomes legally effective after five years even if statutory requirements were unmet.

Federal Court Ruling on Birth Timing and Gender Status

The Federal Court of Justice sustained the mother’s legal appeal, overturning the lower court decisions and declaring the paternity acknowledgment invalid. The court determined that the person recognizing paternity must possess the legally required male status at the exact moment of the child’s birth. Because the parent was legally registered as a female during the 2014 birth, that prerequisite was absent, according to rechtsanwalt.com.

The bench reasoned that permitting a person who was legally female at birth to later establish paternity would create a contradiction where a child could theoretically be assigned two legal mothers or two legal fathers. The justices added that the five-year healing period under section 1598, paragraph 2 of the German Civil Code can fix minor administrative flaws but cannot establish a legal fatherhood status that is prohibited by statute.

Federal Court Ruling Aligns with Self-Determination Act

The Federal Court of Justice stated that its decision aligns with the Self-Determination Act enacted in November 2024, which anchors parent-child relationships to the gender entry registered at birth. Under that legislation, trans women can file an affidavit to keep their prior male gender entry effective for fatherhood attribution, but the law provides no equivalent mechanism for trans men.

Maik Brückner, the queer policy spokesperson for the Left party in the Bundestag, commented on the outcome by stating that the ruling is formally understandable but exposes deep flaws in existing family law. Der Gesetzgeber muss im Abstammungsrecht endlich Abstand davon nehmen, dass es nur einen Vater und eine Mutter as Eltern geben kann, Brückner stated, calling for parliament to drop traditional parental limits and eliminate section 11 of the Self-Determination Act to protect trans families from retroactive legal penalties.