Indirect discrimination is less obvious than direct discrimination, as it does not refer to intentional acting, but rather to apparent neutral structures and regulations, which do discriminate against certain people. According to § 2 para. 2 of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG), indirect discrimination is ‘when apparently neutral rules, criteria or procedures put people at a particular disadvantage compared to other people (within the meaning of § 1 AGG), unless the relevant rule, criteria or procedures are objectively justified by a legitimate aim’. In order to determine indirect discrimination, there must be a different treatment which is not objectively justified. 

For example, for many official acts, it is necessary to prove one’s identity by an official document. The identity documents of many trans* people do not show the correct gender. In such moments, they must come out unintentionally. Therefore, trans* people are more often confronted with uncomfortable and intimidating situations during official acts.

Another example is gender-separated toilets. Due to the socially dominant heteronormativity,toilets separated by two genders appear as a neutral regulation. This does not take into account the fact that not everyone identifies as one of the two genders or marked as incongruent to the specific gender by other people and are denied access to toilets. Discriminatory experiences of trans* people in the context of sanitary facilities may also result in verbal and/or physical violence (hate crime).

Therefore, trans* people are disadvantaged in everyday life as they cannot use sanitary facilities as unconditionally as cis people.
Seemingly neutral regulations which discriminate against groups of people are not always recognised as discrimination in judicial decisions. This is illustrated by the example of a trans man, who was refused as a police candidate, ref.no.: 9 E 5687/06, due to his drug hormone supply. This was not considered as discrimination on the grounds of gender by the Frankfurt Administrative Court. However, the apparently neutral police regulations as ground for this decision places the plaintiff at a distinct disadvantage in comparison with non-trans* people.