Austrian parliament bans so-called gender-inclusive language from official communications

Austria’s National Council has decided to stop using so-called gender-inclusive language in its official documents, returning to traditional grammar respecting the rules of the German language.

National Council President Walter Rosenkranz announced the parliament will again use the generic masculine or the traditional pairing of female and male terms, such as “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren” (“Dear ladies and gentlemen”).

Under previous leadership, Austria’s parliament used experimental spellings pushed by activists who inserted symbols such as asterisks, slashes or capital letters inside words to represent gender ideology. The symbols were meant to show inclusion of people who identify as transgender or as something other than male or female.

For example, instead of writing Lehrer (teachers), liberals and leftists would write Lehrerinnen* or Lehrer:innen to include women and people who identify as nonbinary. In that example, “innen” is the feminine plural ending in German, and the added symbol is meant to signal inclusion of people who identify as nonbinary. 

Critics of the practice have long said it distorts language and enforces an ideology that most citizens reject. The German Language Association has called gendered writing “ideological language” that “violates applicable spelling rules” and seeks to “re-educate” society. 

Rosenkranz said he wants language that’s easier to understand. 

“As a government institution, we have to follow the rules set by the Council for German Orthography, which is the only government-approved institution,” Rosenkranz told Krone. “True equality comes through education, fair opportunities, and respect – not through punctuation marks. 

“Parliament is a place of democracy, not of linguistic experimentation. We are returning to a language that reflects the spirit of the Austrian Constitution: universally understandable, objective, and inclusive in the best sense of the word.” 

Rosenkranz noted other European parliaments, including Germany’s Bundestag and Switzerland’s National Council, do not use gender-neutral writing either. 

The new rule applies to all official communications of the Austrian parliament but not to speeches or proposals by individual members, who still have freedom to write as they choose. 

Rosenkranz, a member of the conservative Freedom Party (FPÖ), became the first president of the National Council from his party after it won the most votes in the 2024 legislative election. Despite this success, the FPÖ remains outside the governing coalition because other parties refused to form a government with it.