The Council for German Orthography does not classify gender signs as a core component of German orthography. This was announced by the committee in Eupen, Belgium, about gender-equitable writing. In a new supplement on the subject of special characters, the Council also lists the genders in the middle of the word – colon, underscore and asterisk.
Council chairman Josef Lange told the news agency that it was intended to describe the social phenomenon itself. The signs conveyed “superlinguistically charged” that all gender identities were meant. Lange added: “The gender star is not part of the core area of German orthography.” So there are still no regular characters.
The Council now wants to propose to the state authorities to add the special characters section to the official regulations. At the same time, the previous recommendations of the Council have not been rescinded, as the panel announced. Long said: “The development is not complete.” She must continue to be observed. The meeting was preceded by a very controversial discussion.
The Council is an important authority on spelling. His task on behalf of government agencies is to maintain the uniformity of spelling in the German-speaking world and to further develop the spelling with a view to changing the language.
Most recently, in 2021, the Council recommended not including asterisks, underscores, colons or other forms for identifying multi-gender designations in the middle of the word in the official regulations at this time. Now it would still not be recorded regularly, but described as a phenomenon in the area of special characters.
