As of: March 25, 2024, 7:46 a.m
By: Stefan Aigner
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At the University of Regensburg, activists criticized the Bavarian government's gender ban.
They call for ignoring it.
Regensburg – “Language ban?!
WTF NOpe!
I gender anyway!” This banner dangled from a building at the University of Regensburg on Thursday.
Reason: The recently issued regulation by the Bavarian state government, which prohibits civil servants from using gender in written language and even threatens disciplinary measures.
In addition to the banner, the University of Regensburg also addressed this “populist regulation” with several critical comments.
Criticism of the gender ban from the university roof: “paternalism”
It was only on Tuesday that the Bavarian state government banned the use of special characters – gender asterisks and the like – to describe gender diversity.
In authorities, at schools and universities in Bavaria it is - no joke - forbidden to use gender in writing with an asterisk, colon, gender gap, etc. from April 1st.
There had previously been clear criticism of the project.
Protest against the gender ban from the roof of the University of Regensburg.
© Jona Hildebrandt
“The ban on gendering with special characters is paternalism,” criticized activist Jona Hildebrand on Thursday in a speech from the roof of the University of Regensburg.
Language is a powerful instrument that must do justice to social conditions.
“If everything that deviates from binary norms is forbidden in scripture, that has consequences.” This would make non-binary identities a taboo.
Criticism of the gender ban from the university umbrella: “an exaggerated answer to an imagined problem”
The ban that has now been issued is also an “excessive response to an imagined problem” because there was never any compulsion to gender.
“All people have always had and continue to have the freedom not to gender.”
Paul Kieferle, another speaker, speaks of the fact that “polarizing fears (…) of constructed 'gender obligations' and 'language bans'" are being deliberately stoked here, "only in order to then limit linguistic diversity."
Kieferle describes the ban that has now been issued as the “wooden hammer method”.
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Criticism of the gender ban: “Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves how they want to express themselves.”
“Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves how they want to express themselves,” said the activists in a statement that was subsequently sent out.
“This includes the free decision to change gender or not to do so.
The state doesn't have to get involved.
Freedom of expression is part of democracy.”
People don’t want to live in a state “that tells us how we can speak and write.”
The statement calls on those affected by the Bavarian gender ban to continue gendering “and to ignore the new regulation”.
That is “civil courage”.
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