As of: February 8, 2024, 1:17 p.m
By: Stephanie Munk
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53 associations are calling on the Bavarian parliamentary groups to prevent Söder's gender ban.
The final word may not yet have been spoken to the Free Voters.
Munich – “We will prohibit gender in schools and administration” – with this announcement, Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder attracted nationwide attention in his first government statement after the state elections in December.
Teachers' and parents' associations immediately protested against the plan.
Söder left it cold: “I believe that gender divides our society more than anything else,” he said.
Science Minister Markus Blume (CSU) went one better by also announcing a gender ban for universities.
But Söder will probably have to prepare for massive headwinds if he actually wants to push through the gender ban in Bavaria: A broad alliance of trade unions and associations is now calling on the Bavarian state parliament members to prevent the announced ban at schools and universities.
Ban gender: CSU boss Markus Söder announced this for schools and authorities in a government statement in December.
© Frank Hoermann/Sven Simon/Imago
All political groups except the AfD received a letter about Söder's planned gender ban
The parliamentary group leaders of all parties in the Bavarian state parliament - with the exception of the AfD - received an open letter on Thursday (February 8th) urgently warning against the gender ban.
“A state-imposed gender ban promotes anti-queer sentiment in the country and is grist to the mill of those who have long been agitating against queer people, stigmatizing their realities of life as unequal and, in extreme cases, violently persecuting them as 'life unworthy',” it says.
Söder's planned gender ban would destroy all efforts for greater queer visibility, it is said: non-binary people who only partially fit into the categories of man and woman would be "pushed out of the language and discriminated against."
Söder wants a gender ban in Bavaria: “Schools should be a safe space”
53 associations and organizations support the open letter.
It was initiated by the German Federation of Trade Unions in Bavaria and its youth organization, the regional associations of the education union GEW and the railway and transport union as well as the lesbian and gay association.
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The signatories also warn against a gender ban in schools because queer children and young people are a particularly vulnerable group.
Their suicide rate is four to six times higher than that of their peers - also due to bullying.
“Bavaria’s schools should be a protective space, a place of appreciation and acceptance for all children and young people, regardless of their gender and sexual identity,” emphasize the authors of the letter.
Söder wants to ban gender in Bavaria – That’s what Free Voters Minister Stolz says
So far, Söder has left it open exactly how the ban on gender in schools, universities and authorities should be implemented - and whether and how it should be sanctioned.
“We will still see everything,” he said, according to
SZ
, in December when he visited a school.
Education Minister Anna Stolz (Free Voters) will implement the project “with empathy, but also with consistency”.
At the time, Stolz only said that she was interested in an “everyday, pragmatic approach to the issue of gender”.
Together with the schools, we want to find solutions in line with the line of the German Spelling Council.
CSU and Free Voters: Different attitudes towards gender in the election program
The last word may not have been spoken here yet - after all, the Free Voters are currently not afraid to oppose the CSU despite a joint coalition.
Only recently did Education Minister Stolz make her own position clear when, contrary to Söder's announcement, she advocated that religious instruction in Bavaria should also be reduced in favor of more German and math lessons.
Söder dismissed this as a “misunderstanding” – and boldly made it clear that everyone was in agreement: “Religion will not be cut.”
Different positions on the issue of gender between the CSU and Free Voters were already apparent in the two parties' election programs for the state elections: The CSU is against the fact that Bavarian schools use formulations that reflect other genders in addition to "female" and "male".
The Free Voters, on the other hand, take a neutral position on this.
(smu/dpa)