Overview

• Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer ordered 470 Bundeskanzleramt culture and media staff in Berlin and Bonn on August 3 to stop using gender asterisks or Binnen-I in official communications.
• The directive requires traditional salutations such as “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren” in letters, emails and memos in line with orthography council rules.
• A Digital Ministry spokesman confirmed on August 4 that no federal ministry will employ gender asterisks in written texts, citing the council’s July orthography update.
• CSU Secretary Martin Huber and CDU Education Minister Karin Prien publicly endorsed the prohibition as a means to preserve linguistic unity and tradition.
• Student groups, rights advocates and several regional courts continue to contest gender‐neutral language bans, warning they threaten representation and academic freedom.