Styrian government plans to abolish gender language in laws!

Styrian government plans to abolish gender language in laws!

In the Styrian state government, it is boiling: The coalition of FPÖ and ÖVP plans to abolish the gender in the state laws. The decision, which is to be taken next Tuesday, aims to unify the 235 existing state laws into standardized and make more reader -friendly. FPÖ state captain Mario Kunasek has already made it clear that he would like to rely on "common sense" instead of "illegible senselessly genders", as he calls it. This project works high waves, because at the moment many laws use complicated gender formulations that are often incomprehensible in public, such as in the Styrian Data Protection Act, according to krone.at.

The solution: a "gender general clause" that is now to be anchored in every state law. This regulation is intended to clarify that personal names will apply to all genders in the future. This abolished the gender in the previous form; The gender letter will be withdrawn in the event of future amendments to law. While only 17 percent of the current state laws contain a general clause, it should be 100 percent in the future.

readability and accessibility in focus

ÖVP deputy Manuela Khom has stated that this new regulation ensures that all citizens feel addressed. The coalition has agreed to abolish female functional names in order to increase readability, intelligibility and legal certainty. Accessibility is also to be improved with these measures. In the text of all state laws, simpler, gender-neutral formulations, as the Kleine Zeitung reports.

On June 10th, a subcommittee of the state parliament will prepare the implementation of the new regulation, and the official resolution is scheduled for July 1st

a trend office for language?

The discussion about gender -friendly language is not new. There have been many discussions in our neighboring country on the use of gender forms in correspondence. Studies show that neutral formulations are preferred by a large part of the population. In 1997, a survey showed that 42 percent of the respondents prefer neutral formulations, while only 19 percent favor the generic masculine. According to another study by 2007, which was carried out at the University of Heidelberg, the broad acceptance of gender -neutral forms of designation was confirmed, which makes the current development particularly interesting [wikipedia] (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticht_GENCHEIS_GENUNGENS_ZUR_ZUR_GESCHELLECHTEICHTEN- Language).

Practice in the legal system has changed in recent decades: Many laws have been formulated gender -friendly, but the trend has not continued in a variety of other regulations. With today's decision, the Styrian state government could break into a new era of legislation - one that relies on a clear, readable language and at the same time tries to take all people into account.