In addition to an article about the gender star in the english Wikipedia I wrote today:
 

The use of gender star in Germany has changed during the last years (you will remember our latest discussion about that).

 

I have translated a part of an actual about the use of gender signals in Germany, which you can read here:

 

The federal state of Saxony has extended its existing ban on using gender symbols such as the gender asterisk or the colon to interrupt words at the latest. The ban now also applies to correspondence with contractual partners. In its justification, the state of Saxony referred to a letter from the "German Spelling Council" ("Deutscher Rat für Rechtschreibung") from 2021. At that time, the Council had not recommended the use of special characters inside words. The Council has now revisited the issue at its meeting in Eupen, the capital of the German-speaking Community of Belgium. The result: the 2021 decision, not to recommend it still applies.

But Saxony is not the only state that explicitly prohibits gendering in schools. How do the other 15 federal states do it?

Like Saxony, some federal states explicitly prohibit the use of special characters for gendering. Other states also refer to the official rules of the German Spelling Council, which do not even know or mention the genderstar or a colon to break a word, because a "gender star" simply did not exist, when  these rules were statuated. But on the other side they have not explicitly banned the use of special characters already. But only two of 15 federal states even use gendering themselves in external communication and have defined the gender signals as special characters.

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But again: in these following two federal states, gendering is officially prohibited in written language!

 

In Saxony, gendering with special characters inside words is not only prohibited in administration. At school, the use of gender asterisks, colons and the like results in points being deducted. But Saxony is not the only state where this issue is handled in this way.

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In Schleswig-Holstein too, pupils are penalized for gendering with signs as a mistake and, if repeated, as a subsequent mistake. Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) had already issued a decree to schools in 2021. She had also referred to the official regulations, which do not provide for gendering in this way. She therefore considers gendering in schools to be wrong, she said.

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Bayern has announced last week, that they soon will prohibit the use in schools and universities: [1]

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WHAT TO DO?

When the gender star was invented, a gender neutral already existed: the so called "generic masculinum", which always has been the official genderneutral form in the German language. Sometimes a participal form like "die Teilnehmenden" instead of "die Teilnehmer und Teilnehmerinnen" has been used. But people usedd this form only to avoid a discussion and the use of the gender star or a colon as word breaker. Since the prohibition in the first federal states it is already vanished from the public discourse.

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Only newspapers who follow a special political interest use "genderizing" still in their publications. Some political parties from the left wing or extreme left wing parties have decided to go on with that too. But even some feministic newspapers avoid the use of the "genderized forms" and give the reason, that the feministic movement has changed during the last years from his "third stage" to the "forth stage", and that "genderizing" is not needed any more or even contraproductive now.

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And the latest from an article of "The Guardian" from the 22th of May 2023: Bürger*innen? Backlash as Berlin mayor refuses to use gender-neutral language [2]

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