Attack on trans woman in Bremen: victim released from hospital

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Photo: Andreas Gora / imago images/Andreas Gora

A group of ten to 15 young people attacked a trans woman in a Bremen tram and injured her face.

The woman had to be treated in a local hospital, but according to SPIEGEL information she has since been able to leave.

The 57-year-old from Bremen was on the tram around 7:35 p.m. on Saturday when the teenagers got on at a stop in the city center.

They insulted the woman and tore off her wig.

A perpetrator, who was estimated by witnesses to be 14 to 16 years old, punched the woman in the face with both fists.

The other group members cheered him on.

Only when other passengers intervened did the group let go of the woman and get off the train.

The young people fled, said a police spokeswoman on Monday.

State security is investigating hate crime and dangerous bodily harm.

The investigators now want to examine videos from a railway surveillance camera and are hoping for meaningful images of the crime.

At the time of the crime, the woman from Bremen was traveling on tram line 4 in the direction of Neustadt – the police asked possible witnesses to get in touch.

Trans people are people who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.

The Trans*Inter*Dyke* March took place in Bremen on Saturday, a rally by trans activists.

They reported an increasingly trans- and queer-hostile mood on the sidelines of the event.

The renewed attack is worrying: just a few days ago, a 25-year-old died in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, after an attack on the sidelines of an event for Christopher Street Day (CSD).

According to the police, he had put himself in front of participants who had been massively homophobic insulted by a 20-year-old.

The 20-year-old then hit the young man in the face several times, causing the latter to fall.

He died later in hospital.

The alleged attacker is in custody.

After the autopsy on Monday, it is now clear that the 25-year-old did not die directly from the punches.

According to the public prosecutor's office, he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury to the back of his head, which was probably caused by the subsequent impact with the asphalt.

Two days after the arrest of the suspect, his companion also reported.

The Münster public prosecutor said on Monday that no further investigations would be carried out against him.

gud/ala/AFP