In our texts, we do not use the asterisk (*) on gender-assigning terms such as men or boys because trans* men are men. They do not need an asterisk to be included. The asterisk rather marks them as “additional” and “different”, i.e. excludes them. It is also sometimes used in a trans-hostile way.

We consider being a man to be diverse and intersectional per se. For us, men are all people who see themselves as men, regardless of whether they are trans*, inter*, cis or another perspective.

Gender is a social construct, just like nation, class or race. Given the multitude of social constructions, it seems impractical to mark all of them with (*) or only a selection.

In our texts, we use an asterisk (*) when

• we are dealing with self-designations from communities, e.g. trans*, inter*.
• we want to represent all genders linguistically in plural forms, e.g. participants.

We see our choice of this spelling as a process. This can be seen in our materials from previous years, in which we have chosen other forms. Our vision is an inclusive society in which language is allowed to co-evolve. This vision should shape our attitude and work. Achieving it requires further social change processes in addition to language.

 

 

Version January 25th, 2024