Enlarge image
Baden-Württemberg's Interior Minister Strobl wants to counter "regulatory deficits"
Photo: Silas Stein / dpa
In neighbouring Bavaria, the state government had already announced regulations against the use of gender-neutral spellings, and now Baden-Württemberg is following suit with regulations. As Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) announced, gendering in the language of the state authorities is to be banned.
An administrative regulation will stipulate that special characters such as internal I and gender asterisks will no longer be permitted in the administrative language in the future, said Strobl. This would then apply, for example, to correspondence from ministries or regional councils. Schools and universities are not to be affected by this for the time being.
In legal language, i.e. in legal texts, administrative regulations and ordinances, gendering is already not allowed in the southwest, said Strobl. Until now, he had assumed that this also applied to the language of administration. This is now to be recorded with a regulation, because it happens sporadically again and again that gendering is done in the state administration, according to Strobl. These are special characters such as the asterisk, the bracket and the underscore. "Otherwise, everyone writes as they like." Strobl announced that he would soon introduce a supplementary regulation to the cabinet.
Previously, the Ministry of the Interior had rejected an application for a referendum against compulsory gender in schools and public authorities – for formal reasons. The initiators had collected and submitted many thousands of signatures. The bill states that the state government and its subordinate authorities, as well as all other institutions in the state, should refrain from requiring the use of gender-neutral changes and additions.
Greens in other federal states are explicitly in favour of gender language
In Baden-Württemberg, the Greens of Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann govern together with the CDU. In the past, other Green state associations, such as in Lower Saxony, had spoken out in favour of gender-equitable language, for example "in legal and administrative provisions". Kretschmann himself said that he did not see any need for regulation with regard to gender language in public authorities. "For the state government, it's quite simple: In official documents, we stick to the spelling rules," says the head of the state.
The CDU parliamentary group in Baden-Württemberg is also against the use of gender-neutral changes and additions. Gender language is exclusive, it does not build bridges, but tears up rifts, emphasized CDU parliamentary group leader Manuel Hagel. Gender symbols have the potential to be divisive.
The CDU had invited the initiator of the referendum against a gender obligation, Klaus Hekking from Heidelberg, to a parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday. Shortly before, Hekking had filed an appeal against the rejection of his application with the Constitutional Court. However, he announced that he would withdraw the lawsuit if the state government now implemented the gender ban – but until then he wanted to maintain it. He is not interested in unnecessary confrontation, but in keeping "steam in the cauldron".
fek/dpa