Is this for real? I can’t draw no other conclusion than US defaultism in trans activism gives a free pass to TERF politics in Europe. This kind of news from Germany cannot mean anything good.
According to Wikipedia:
In 2019, the German Language Association VDS (Verein Deutsche Sprache; not to be confused with the Association for the German Language Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, GfdS) launched a petition against the use of the gender star, saying it was a “destructive intrusion” into the German language and created “ridiculous linguistic structures”. It was signed by over 100 writers and scholars.[11] Luise F. Pusch, a German feminist linguist, criticises the gender star as it still makes women the ‘second choice’ by the use of the feminine suffix.[12] In 2020, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache declared Gendersternchen to be one of the 10 German Words of the Year.[13]
In 2023, the state of Saxony banned the use of gender stars and gender gaps in schools and education, which marks students’ use of the gender stars as incorrect.[14][15] In March 2024, Bavaria banned gender-neutral language in schools, universities and several other public authorities.[16][17] In April 2024, Hesse banned the use of gender neutral language, including gender stars, in administrative language.[18]
Here are the original Wikipedia references
- “Der Aufruf und seine Erstunterzeichner”. Verein Deutsche Sprache (in German). 6 March 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- Schlüter, Nadja (22 April 2019). ““Das Gendersternchen ist nicht die richtige Lösung””. Jetzt.de (in German). Retrieved 5 April 2020. “GfdS Wort des Jahres” (in German). Retrieved 13 December 2020.
- Jones, Sam; Willsher, Kim; Oltermann, Philip; Giuffrida, Angela (2023-11-04). “What’s in a word? How less-gendered language is faring across Europe”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
- “Schools in Saxony are forbidden to use gender language”. cne.news. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
I got into this rabbit hole from this news article
The German thing is a bit different. It’s kind of like if English didn’t have “they” as a neutral alternative, so people use “**e” as way to mean neither “he” nor “she”.
That’s fine in writing, but it looks pretty weird, doesn’t work well in other forms, and you get things like “e gives the ball to h”. It also really doesn’t work outside the written word, because how do you pronounce that?
And I do understand that you don’t want the female form to be the neutral form. If youre genderneutral, it probably feels weird to be constantly adressed as a woman.