For those of you who don't know about the current discussions in German politics:

German is a heavily gendered language, with distinct female and male forms for a lot of words. While it's been pretty common to just use the 'generic male' term for, say, occupations (i.e. just using the male version of a word to refer to mixed groups of people), there's been a push in the last few years to use more gender-inclusive (or gender-sensitive, whatever you want to call it) versions of terms.

In written form, this usually means that you'll 'merge' the two terms with a * indicating that you're referring to a mixed group.

For example, if you're talking about teachers, instead of just using the generic male term Lehrer, or using both male and female (Lehrer und Lehrerinnen), you just write Lehrer*Innen (or LehrerInnen, or Lehrer_Innen, depending on preference).

The Bavarian state authorities, who are traditionally Christian maniacs, have now decided that this is unacceptable. They're arguing that this inclusive language goes against freedom of speech, that you need to be able to "have unrestricted discourse in a liberal society", and that an ideologically-influenced language like this would prohibit that. And so, in the name of freedom of speech, they are banning the use of the gender inclusive terms by schools, unis and state officials. It's as insane as it sounds.

This shit has been going on for like three years in schools in Saxony. I once got an official warning by my headmaster because I referred to students as Schüler*innen in a mail to a parent. (The parent complained.)

As far as I know, this rule refers only to "schools and their project partners", meaning that as long as a company adresses parents/kids in a school context (for an internship for example) they are forbidden from using this kind of gendered language.

This includes also projects working with students on LGBT+ topics, which is so stupid I don't even have words for it.

Actually, interesting addition: since students aren't really allowed to use it either, at my school some kids started using the female form as generic. I think it's funny as shit.

Unrestrained summer fun

I'm haunted by this fucking alligator. I can't avoid it. Every single time I'm on my dash this alligator is here. I have no issue with this allgiator but there are constant unrestrained summer funs all over my dashboard.w hat is happening. why can I not escape this fuckingalligator

Are you asking us to restrain him?

GOD forbid women do anything these days

example usage

wait I'm not done