BERLIN: A transsexual woman who used sperm she had banked prior to her sex change to have a baby with her female partner cannot be legally registered as the child's mother, Germany's highest civil and criminal court ruled on Thursday.

The Federal Court of Justice, rejected an appeal filed to a lower court by the transsexual woman who wanted to be registered as a second mother of the child, born in 2015. It said only the woman who gives birth can be considered the child's legal mother.

In September, the court made a similar ruling in a case concerning a transsexual man who gave birth to a baby and wanted to be registered as the legal father.

The court said in its ruling on Thursday that although the rights and duties of a transsexual person depended on their new gender, the legal relationship with his or her children remained unchanged.

In November, Germany's constitutional court ruled in favour of the introduction of a third gender category for people who do not identify as either male or female or are born with an ambiguous sexual anatomy.