Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder wants to ban gender in schools and in the Free State’s authorities in the future. “For Bavaria I can say: With us there will be no mandatory gendering. On the contrary: we will even prohibit gendering in schools and administration,” said the CSU boss in his first government statement in the new legislative period in the state parliament.
At the same time, he accused the federal traffic light government of going overboard with projects such as cannabis legalization, gender and the right to self-determination: “Don’t we have any other problems in Germany?”
Binnen-I, underscore, gender asterisks and the like are a topic that is always controversially discussed nationwide – in some federal states, bans like those envisaged by Söder in Bavaria already apply or there are efforts to do so.
There are already gender bans here
For example, at schools in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, special characters for gender-neutral language are rejected. In Saxony, couple forms such as students and gender-neutral forms such as teachers or young people are recommended. Gender forms are marked as errors in essays, for example.
Saxony-Anhalt’s Ministry of Education prohibits the use of so-called gender asterisks and similar constructions in its schools, but gives teachers leeway when evaluating student texts.
There are no gender bans in North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg. However, the Ministry of Education in Düsseldorf refers to the requirements of the state equal opportunities law, according to which gender-appropriate language must generally be used. This should be formulated gender-neutrally or in pairs, i.e. female and male.
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann doesn’t believe in gender in the classroom, even if, according to the Ministry of Education, the assessment and correction guidelines for final exams there do not contain any statements on the subject.
The German Teachers’ Association, meanwhile, rejects gendering by teachers. Teachers should “adhere to the official rules and regulations and refrain from writing anything that is not intended,” said the President of the German Teachers’ Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, to the German Press Agency in April. However, they should be “tolerant and reserved” with students if they use “unofficial gender spellings” in essays and exams.
