Municipal vote Zurich City Council rejects "Bye bye gender star" initiative

The popular initiative "Bye bye gender star" failed to find enough supporters in Zurich's municipal council on Wednesday evening: The 125-member committee recommended that voters reject it at the ballot box by 68 votes to 44.

The initiative from the ranks of the SVP specifically demands a change to the municipal regulations: the municipal authorities should use clear, understandable and legible language and refrain from using special characters within individual words.

The city of Zurich updated its regulations on linguistic equality, which have been in place since 1994, in 2022. In the process, the previously permitted internal I in "employees" was removed again. Since then, either "Mitarbeitende" or "Mitarbeiter*innen" may be used if required.

"What is a farmer?"

Texts with a gender star are difficult to understand for people with a migration background who are learning German as a foreign language, the initiative committee now criticizes. In addition, this star also creates incorrect forms, said Stefan Urech (SVP) in the council debate. He referred to terms such as "farmers" and "doctors". And he asked: "What is a farmer? What is a doctor?"

The FDP also expressed reservations: This linguistic dictate leads to incomprehensible, unclear language and thus to misunderstandings, said Yasmine Bourgeois. In addition, an asterisk does not make the world a better place - it depends on attitude and values.

However, the Liberals were not completely convinced by the "Bye bye gender star" initiative: "We want neither a ban nor a compulsion." However, a motion to this effect appeared to have no chance in the Council, which is why the FDP supported the SVP initiative after all.

Hardly any negative feedback

The Zurich City Council spoke out clearly against the initiative. It pointed to "relative application difficulties in implementation". This is because special characters that should be banned within a word include not only a (gender) asterisk, but also hyphens or diacritics such as "ï", "ç" or "ž".

He went on to say in his application that he had received very little negative feedback on the revised regulations from the public and employees. And there is no known case of a text not being understood correctly because of an "*".

By deliberately allowing the gender star, the administration is showing "that it recognizes and respects non-binary and trans people", said Mayor Corine Mauch (SP). The regulations only apply to official communication. The people of Zurich, businesses or the spoken language are not affected.

Memories of the "Fräulein"

The majority of the municipal council took a similar view to the city council. The language should include everyone, said Urs Riklin (Greens). A language that includes everyone does not harm anyone, added Anna-Béatrice Schmaltz (Greens).

The GLP, with its "progressive vision of society", also did not understand that a culture war was being waged over the little star, as Ann-Catherine Nabholz said. The language was changing and the "Fräulein" could be overcome without any problems.

Corine Mauch also noted that "typographic signs for a trans-inclusive language have long since arrived in everyday life". She cited job advertisements and advertising, for example. "Language is a living thing, it evolves with our society."

After around an hour and a half of debate, the FDP, SVP and Center/EPP parliamentary groups voted in favour of the initiative in the final vote. Those from the SP, Greens, GLP and AL rejected it. The date of the vote is not yet known.

SDA