Following a wave of outrage on social media as well as in local media and politics, a RemscheidAfD politician has stepped down from his voluntary political post. Sven Kühner, district representative for Remscheid-Lüttringhausen, had previously launched vicious insults at a transgender woman on Facebook.
A 23-year-old pansexual Austrian woman had been seeking connections in a Facebook group for “lonely people”: “would be happy if one could connect for writing and getting to know each other,” Luna A. wrote about a photo of herself. The post has since drawn more than 1,000 comments, including a lot of mockery and hate.
Kühner wrote in the early Monday hours that A. should “shut her mouth,” is “a fat, pudgy boy and far from a ‘she’.” He also initially commented: “If I catch you in a women’s bathroom, when my daughters are in there, I’ll kill you, you stupid freak.” In the afternoon he deleted that part, and on Tuesday evening shortened the text to a single period. The comment with the edit history remains accessible as of Friday.
Prosecutor’s Office Investigating
The Left party lamented in a press release that Kühner had “repeatedly attracted attention with discriminatory remarks on social media” in the past. “With this incident he has, however, crossed every line.” Other parties, up to the CDU, expressed their horror; the SPD district mayor Gerhild Dietrich filed a police report, according to a WDR report: “The statements are dehumanizing. Unthinkable what this does to the victim. It is clearly about transphobia. We must resist.”
Senior state prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert told WDR that a final assessment remains to be made, but it can be preliminarily stated that “there is indeed insulting content, and there is also threatening content.” There are no indications that the threat could be carried out.
Politician Continues to Express Transphobia
The resignation was announced on Thursday. The AfD said that, at a faction meeting on Tuesday, they had agreed to this by mutual consent. “The AfD faction assumes responsibility today, but emphasizes that it is not due to political coercion, but because it aligns with their values,” Radio RSG reports. The declaration states that the rule of law is a high good.
According to WDR, Kühner told the broadcaster that the resignation came from “professional obligations” and that the ongoing discussion was the reason for taking the step now. He said he intends to remain politically active and a member of the party.
The “concrete wording of the aforementioned post was not alright,” he told WDR via a lawyer, adding that it was “not meant literally” and had been “corrected” after he had calmed down. At the same time, he said he views “trans ideology and its excesses” with strong skepticism: “For me, this is connected with extremely negative effects for our society and the future of our country. It is a topic that emotionally unsettles and preoccupies me greatly.”
