Together for the right to a self-determined love life

Crowdfunding: GFF goes to court against Tinder control by public employers - we need your financial support!

On 25 May 2022, the Federal Administrative Court confirmed that the Bundeswehr may reprimand a female officer for the content of her dating profile. The court stated that the search for sexual partners via online dating could create the impression of "sexual indiscipline" and doubts about her authority.

The complainant Anastasia Biefang is a board member of the QueerBW association. She is defending herself against the interference of her employer in her private life and against the insinuation that she has to base her online dating on possible errors and prejudices of made-up subordinates.

The GFF supports Anastasia Biefang on her way to Karlsruhe, where she wants to file a constitutional complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court.

We need your support for these proceedings! Please support us with your donation!

The consequences of this decision of the Federal Administrative Court are serious for many individuals: it allows an employer (in this case a public employer) to restrict the private expression and exercise of one's chosen relationship models and one's sexuality and to relate this to professional authority. In doing so, the employer interferes with one of the most intimate and personal decisions - how and with whom a person wants to have relationships. The Federal Constitutional Court considers interference with sexual self-determination to be justified only if other people are at risk - there can be no question of that here.

The press release published in May and the reasons for the decision of 14 September read like a socio-political step back into the 1950s: the court's reasoning is based on a sexual morality that particularly restricts women and queer people. Gender, sexuality, relationship model as well as looking for encounters that correspond to one's own desire are questions of a person's private life. None of these points calls into question an individual's suitability for leadership roles. It is all the more important to secure these freedoms not only for heterosexual men, but for all people - including women and trans people, and of course also for people working in the public service.

The Federal Constitutional Court has made it clear again and again in its case law: the protection of personality and self-determination also protects the right to live according to an inner identity or conviction. No one has to keep their own attitude secret, no one has to pretend. Now, with the planned lawsuit, we can give the Federal Constitutional Court the opportunity to clarify with a fundamental ruling: This also includes the free expression of one's own sexuality in the appropriate form of relationship.

In cooperation with the QueerBW association and Anastasia Biefang, we want to file a constitutional complaint to clarify that the employer has no right to observe, evaluate and prevent this part of their private life, even in the case of state employees with executive functions.

External Content from YouTube

Please see the privacy policy of YouTube if you are loading external content.

Load content

Accompanying this constitutional complaint with legal and communicative means up to the decision in Karlsruhe is expensive. Please donate and spread this appeal to fight together with Anastasia Biefang for a contemporary interpretation of the right to a free choice how to live one's life as well as sexual self-determination.

If some of the donations are not needed for Anastasia Biefang's constitutional complaint, the GFF will use them for other strategic lawsuits in accordance with our statutes to protect the fundamental rights of queer people in Germany and Europe.

Commitment to fundamental rights and freedoms requires perseverance. If you would like to support the GFF as a supporting member in the coming years, you may do so here.