After protesting against the Bavarian gender ban in front of the State Chancellery, the two activists are now facing criminal consequences. “Charges were filed against both people for, among other things, violations of the Assembly Act, trespassing and resistance to law enforcement officers,” the Munich police headquarters said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, two people placed a banner with the inscription “*innen” between two flagpoles in front of the State Chancellery in protest against the gender ban in Bavaria’s schools that has been in effect since April 1st. They stayed at dizzy heights for around two hours in swings they had installed themselves.
With the campaign, they said they wanted to “call on other pupils, trainees and students to continue gendering in exams and in everyday life in order to speak out against discrimination,” as they subsequently announced. “The two people did not comply with repeated requests to climb down the flagpoles and go to another location,” the police said.
The meeting was then broken up and the two people were safely brought to the ground by specially trained police forces. “In doing so, they resisted police measures.” The two people were released from police custody after their identities were established.
The gender ban came into force in Bavaria this Monday. The use of gender-sensitive gender language is expressly prohibited in schools, universities and authorities. The General Rules of Procedure (AGO) for the authorities of the Free State of Bavaria now state: “Multi-gender spellings using internal word symbols such as gender star, colon, gender gap or media point are not permitted.”
The two protesters justified their action with what they saw as the discrimination and exclusion of people who do not feel they belong to any gender. With the new law, the CSU is trying to impose a language on people that it considers to be correct. The protest is not primarily about getting everyone to change genders. It is important that all people can freely decide whether to gender or not.