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Is this for real? (Please see text)

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

  1. "Der Aufruf und seine Erstunterzeichner". Verein Deutsche Sprache (in German). 6 March 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. “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

News article in German

Archived

A meme monkey looks away when US anti-trans legislators are surveiled by trans activism
urbautz ,
@urbautz@wehavecookies.social avatar

@whydudothatdrcrane No, gender neutral pronouns are not banned. What is banned is the Binnen-I (Mitarbeiter*innen). It is recommended to use much easier to read Mitarbeiter und Mitarbeiterinnen or Mitarbeitende. Also the belittled version Mitarbeiterchen is gender neutral and allowed.

ChaoticNeutralCzech ,

As a person regularly writing regular expressions, the usage of * in a written language rubs me the wrong way. I wouldn’t mind Mitarbeiter/innen, similar to how Czech does it (prodavač/ka, although some are impossible to shorten like skladník/skladnice, as skladník/ce sounds too weird, much like Krankenschwester*innen would).

tobogganablaze ,

Krankenschwesterinnen

Der Begriff ist eh obsolte, ist nun Krankenpfleger.

Tja ,

I think you mean Krankenpfleger*in

tobogganablaze ,

I think you mean Krankenpfleger

I have the “Binnen-I be gone” extension install :(

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

regularly writing regular expressions

The statement speaks for itself.

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

I understand this is a fine point. What is the status report on gender legislation in Germany then? Is this isolated from broader anti-trans politics as a matter of language puritanism and aesthetics?

urbautz ,
@urbautz@wehavecookies.social avatar

@whydudothatdrcrane There are only two relevant parties who are against gender neutrality: The Nazis from AfD and CxU. I also don*t like the Binnen-I and use an browser extension to fix that for me.

Krankenschwester is already female the offical Job name is Krankenpflegefachkraft (which is already neutral).

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

I see. Probably most North-Americans would confuse “gender-neutral” with “non-binary inclusive”.

NessD ,

These laws are only applicable in two of Germany’s 16 states and only for state officials and authorities as well as schools. The other states mostly critize those states for infringing on equality rights. It just bans the use of gender related punctuations in written documents and school exams. It’s not well thought out.

You can still use gender neutral terms (Lehrende instead of Lehrer*innen). It’s a big deal as those states do it to cater to right-wing voters and fish them from the nazi-party AFD.

Btw Binnen-I is LehrerInnen. Other gender neutral notations are a “*”, “_” or “:”

DmMacniel ,
@DmMacniel@feddit.org avatar

Yeah Saxony and Bavaria are pretty much in the hand of populistic politicians and or outright right extremists.

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

Ah Bavaria has right wing extremists? I miss the times when one could flee to the US under similar circumstances.

DmMacniel ,
@DmMacniel@feddit.org avatar

Mostly Populists like Söder of CSU.

Tja ,

Bavaria is like Texas. You have Munich and a few other cities that are progressive and vote even green (so, Austin) , and the rest is cowboys and farmers.

Zahtu ,

Yeah, pretty much that. Just because those Staates have banned it in administrative formal writing, this is in no Case a generalization for Germany. Just “Freistaat” doing their Thing as opposed to the other.

Also as a Note, that “Verein” has in no Case any inflouence over the course of education, as that is governed* by the “Gesellschaft” as mentioned.

*As in giving recommendations

atro_city ,

Let's be honest: it looks like shit and interrupts the flow of a sentence. The alternative of writing both words completely also makes sentences way longer than they should be.

Every gendered language would have to make massive changes to become ungendered and change their grammar too. There's quite a large list of ungendered languages.

German, to my knowledge, is like Russian and has cases which change the ending of a noun depending on the purpose in the sentence (subject, direct object, indirect object, possessor, location, time, ...). Languages with only male and female would have to add a neutral ending, and languages with 3 grammatical genders would have to either use the neutral ending - if there is one, or make a new one specific to living beings.

Then of course pronouns would have to be changed too. In English they/them is already confusing enough when talking about a singular person to somebody and the person doesn't know it's a single person e.g "I talked to them today" - a group or a person? Until hints are dropped it isn't clear. The most logical would've been "it", but that's used for inanimate objects. I'm sure there's a neutral third person singular pronoun languages could borrow instead of using the second person plural.

Tja ,

FYI: Unlike Russian and other Slavic languages German doesn’t (usually) decline the noun, just the article (der/den/dem/des, etc).

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

But aren’t all these technicalities to undermine the inclusion of one or more genders on the basis of some linguistic purism?

This makes me smirk, because a single course in college linguistics will persuade you there is not bigger amalgamated bastard in town than a human language, which is any non-formal language.

For example, you say they ambiguity of they/them, isn’t this comparable to the ambiguity between you/you in plural/singular.

Ambiguity is like, an inherent feature of any language and there are hundreds of languages that resolve ambiguities based on context. Plus, the scholars said that singular them is in usage since the Middle Ages or sth.

So to me all this is a tension between A and B, where A is either linguistic purism or typographical convenience, and B is always including women/trans/non-binary folks. At the same time most people won’t accept the feminine gender as all-inclusive because of their fears of emasculation.

It is a deeply laughable situation.

artemisRiverborne ,

I have no opinion mostly bc I didn’t read the whole thing) but I think its funny how “over 100 writers and scholars” isnt the impact it used to be. U can get 100 ppl to sign just about anything, especially in today’s day and age when it’s so easy for ppl to find other ppl with the same exact prejudices

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

Good point

NuraShiny ,

Saxony and Hesse are currently deep in the far right clutches of the Alternative für Deutaschland, so this does not really come as a surprise.

Eiri ,

The very same happens in French. The use of recently popular gender-neutral structures like “étudiant.e.s” is strongly discouraged in formal writing. The older “étudiant(e)s” less so but still not recommended.

What’s recommended is to either say “étudiants et étudiantes” or just use the masculine form as a group for both masculine and feminine forms, as has been the standard forever, and almost no one bats an eye at.

It’s not TERF, it’s not misogynistic, it’s just to make texts easier to read. It takes more time and effort to read a text full of those extra period/parenthesis characters, for very very little gain.

People wanting to write a text where they consider the sacrifice in readability worth it for the extra emphasis on gender exclusion still can; the police won’t show up. It’s just not standard grammar.

SubArcticTundra ,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Agreed. I think using the masculine as the default should be fine if everyone agrees that it applies to all genders in this context. I wouldn’t even mind if the feminine was used for this instead. It’s just for the sake of legibility.

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

This always makes me wonder why isn’t the feminine that is all inclusive. It occurred to me it is because males would take offense to be called women, where (at least traditionally) this is not the case the other way round.

brickster ,

In german or french It is mostly because the female version is just the male one with an extra ending. I.e. händler / händlerin English would have something similar but the male as default is just the now. You dont say actress but actor

MissJinx ,
@MissJinx@lemmy.world avatar

I know nothing about germans but some languages don’t even have neutral pronouns, even things have gender. In this case you either invent a new word or let it be.

whydudothatdrcrane OP ,

I am pretty sure gender norms, even strict ones, occur to grammatically genderless languages, like Hungarian IIRC. So if a Hungarian student used a ‘*’ to be non-binary inclusive, this could not have meaning in this society, because their language is genderless? I doubt it.

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