Vienna court examines Waltraud’s legal gender status
Tuesday 3rd November 2026 on 14:45 in
Austria
A hearing on the legal gender status of Waltraud P., a former prominent figure in Vienna’s red-light scene, began at the Vienna Regional Administrative Court on Tuesday. The outcome could affect where the person serves a prison sentence, ORF reported.
Waltraud P., born Walter, had changed the gender entry on official records to female. In December 2025, the person was sentenced to 20 months in prison for re-engaging in Nazi activity. A further 12 months from an earlier conviction under Austria’s Prohibition Act were activated, bringing the total sentence to 32 months.
The Vienna Regional Court had called on Waltraud P. to begin serving the sentence, with a month from receipt of the notice to report to Josefstadt prison. Lawyer Nikolaus Rast said he feared for his client’s physical safety there and applied for electronically monitored house arrest. He said the application had not yet been decided.
Rast said his client had met the legal requirements for changing the gender entry. However, the authorities questioned whether the person had been living consistently in another gender, as required in Austria. The city’s Department 63 changed the entry from female back to male in December 2025, describing the original entry as erroneous. Waltraud P. appealed the decision.
The court hearing is to determine whether Rast’s client is transgender. Members of the public were initially excluded while expert reports were discussed. It was not clear whether the court would issue a decision on Tuesday.
The conviction concerned messages shared in WhatsApp groups between 2015 and 2023, when the person was using the name Walter. The messages included images of Adolf Hitler and comments glorifying Hitler and National Socialism, as well as antisemitic content that mocked or endorsed the mass murder of Jews and other Nazi crimes. The Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance has said it has known Walter or Waltraud for some time because of contacts with leading members of Austria’s neo-Nazi scene.