Provide a version of the German constitution using standard German (without Gendersternchen).

[geek-42]

See https://github.com/holacracyone/Holacracy-Constitution/issues/444.

Is there a reason to make the German constitution sound like left wing woke Propaganda by using Gendersternchen?

There are 419 Gendersternchen and each time I read it it feels like a slap in my face. It sounds like the authors are saying: "We are super inclusive we use 'Gendersprech'" (a pure form of virtue signaling).

One can argue that there are all those people that feel that way when they read proper German "GenerischesMaskulinum", therefore I propose to have a "normal" version for non woke organizations and a woke one for woke organizations.

With two versions, organizations can decide which version they use depending on the language they use within the organization.

[matthiask]

Calling the Gendersternchen "extremely woke and left wing" while using a Dilbert avatar[*] just makes you look completely biased and bad.

Fostering inclusivity isn't virtue signalling. It's just what normal people would do.

[*] Scott Adams has truly jumped the shark with his horrendously bad predictions, for example "If Biden is elected, there’s a good chance you will be dead within the year. Republicans will be hunted. Police will stand down.” That's not even trying to be funny anymore.

[geek-42]

@matthiask well, yes reality is there seems to be a divide in society. Therefore I propose to have two translations of the constitution: one following the official German language and one for "normal people" who want to make sure everybody understands their inclusivity.

It seems the majority of Germans do not like Gendersternchen only about one third of Germans are "normal people" according to your definition. The rest is what?

The reason I brought this up is that in our organization and there was the reaction that the German Holacracy constitution is a left wing construct with an hidden agenda.

The English version does not show an obvious political agenda (well there is no need for Gendersternchen in english) and therefore I think the German version should have a version that can be used and signed by organizations that don't use Gendersternchen.

If you think Gendersternchen is not left wing, then check which German publications use some form of Genderlanguage and which are not using it.

It is always amusing to see how "Kontaktschuld" is constructed: "because I use Dilbert I am linked with the writing of Scott Adams". I am a developer and this is a secondary account I have created many years ago. I have chosen Dilbert long before Scott Adams has gone wild. I am not using my real name, because I don't want my co-workers to know that I speak in "their name"... (note that the organization I am working for may be already in the process of adopting Holacracy or, has (partly) adopted it or is discussing the possibility of adopting it, or we are introducing version 5.0 of the constitution)

[geek-42]

Let me try it another way 😄:

In my role of holacracy advocate, my tension is that the language of the current German translation of the 5.0 version of the constitution causes strong reactions in some members of the organization. Therefore I propose to provide a German translation that follows official German language which is compatible with the language used within the organization.

Are there principles of HolacracyOne that an non-Gendersternchen version violates? What harm would it add to HolacracyOne?

[geek-42]

@matthiask thank you for pointing out that my language was completely biased and bad! In my previous comment I have tried to express my tension in a more neutral form and I also changed the title of the issue to reflect the proposal.

It is not about politics it is about making holacracy available to may organizations and reduce unnecessary tensions when adopting holacracy.

[brianjrobertson]

I don't speak German so can't help much here, other than to offer a strong pitch for the following:

• There should be only one official German translation of the constitution, not two.
• That translation should use language that would strike nearly all (say, >98%) of native speakers as politically neutral.

[oliviercp]

Patrick Scheuerer is the Translation Steward for German language, so I would check with him first. @pscheuerer any thoughts on that issue? I personally resonate with the tension shared by @geek-42 , it is counter-productive to alienate a part of the German speaking community. I also understand the problem as I have seen similar things with French. That said I don't know what is the solution for German (though dismissing the issue certainly doesn't seem like the right one)

[klaas1979]

I guess this tension can only be solved by people living in DACH countries (meaning Switzerland, Austria and Germany) for that the translation was made. As I was part of the team doing the translation, I can give a few pointers and informations that maybe help to gain a deeper understanding.

In the German speaking countries language is as of now a political thing. If you say "geschlechtergerechte Sprache" is left wing, or already the norm would miss the point. In my opinion there is no >98% group of speakers as Brian sees as goal. This language discussion started about woman and man, meaning 50% to 50%. Not 50% of the woman do want a "gechlechtsgerechte Sprache" and not 50% of man do not want it. But it is not something that is just a 2% thing. A lot governance institutions, universities, and companies adopted "geschlechtegerechte Sprache" in their internal or external norms, they are not all left or anything. Some pointers: On this page you find a lot about the political undecided landscape about the "Gendersternchen/Binnen-I/geschlechtesgerechte Sprache". this Wikipedia article is maybe the best starting point, as it collects decisions and references to use it as courts deciding that there is no right to have a "geschlechtergerechte Sprache": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetze_und_amtliche_Regelungen_zur_geschlechtergerechten_Sprache

Just for reference I guess we have made two decisions that can be seen as political language wise. We decided to not use "Sie-language" but "Du-language", and we decided to use "geschlechtsgerechte Sprache". Both have been discussion points before the translation began. The colleagues doing the translation maybe can help out with the clear reasoning. As I remember it was: Companies that are going the self-organize path are normally using "Du-language", companies being alienated by "Du" instead of "Sie" are in this polarity less important as target for holacracy. You could turn this around, but you have to decide and maybe err. For using "geschlechtsgerechte Sprache" it was even more that official documents are done in this type of language a lot (see wikipedia article above). The language landscape in 2020, when the translations started, was not clear about where it would go and is still not clear. As of now the guess it that the "geschlechtsgerechte Sprache" is gaining ground, for good or bad if you see it from a pure language point of view. The language is changing and we decided to err in the direction of "geschlechtegerechte Sprache" without deciding to have a political agenda about it.

Fun-Fact: we really had a hard time doing the translation and half-heartly said we need three versions or even four. As this is not viable, we sticked with one. So I guess this cannot be the solution.

Other pointers: In the official meeting where the translation was presented in the German community and till it was launched, this is the first "geschlechtsgerechte Sprache" discussion I take note of. It would maybe need some real UX discovery to get a feeling where the 98% majority lies. I guess it would be great to have a > 70% as of now.

[mirasant]

I can understand the tension but find it funny though that for some people there is a problem in the language of this german constitution (with Genderstern) because they can't identify with it but the thing they expect from half the population (f.e. females) at the same time is to identify with only the male expression. Now you at least know how f.e. I as a female feel a lot of times when people say "you are also meant when I use the male expression" but I can't identify with it. This is not a nice feeling.

I think this shared tension is a good starting point to understand each other and at some point may be able to integrate both of those tensions. Looking forward to that moment 🧡!

[denniswittrock]

@geek-42, I hear your pain, believe me. I totally get your allergic reaction to the excesses of woke culture and all that good stuff.

As a member of the German translation team I was among the people who most struggled with this decision and for a very long time openly (or secretly) opposed sacrificing simplicity of expression. It was really tough for me. I had to examine conflicting motivations within myself: the desire for clean, simple language and the desire to be inclusive and have an open ear for other needs of other non-male users. In the end, my colleagues swayed my opinion on this.

When matters are politically charged (on top of the aesthetic consideration) you only get to choose who you want to offend – you cannot NOT choose, as much as you would like. I arrived at the conclusion that while not being my preference, it would be important for organizations like political parties (e.g. the Swiss Social Democratic Party uses Holacracy) to have a more inclusive version of the constitution.

I accepted that in some aspects, language is changing – whether I like it, or not. Now, after a while, I don't get upset anymore. I got used to it.

We can't and won't stop you from creating a lokal fork that is more to your liking. But to me it makes sense that there should be only one official version of the translation as a "single source of truth". That's the one you will find on the German GitHub. And it will (as far as I can see) stay true to that original decision of the translation team.

I wish you all the best. I really do.

[geek-42]

@matthiask wrote

it [is] funny though that for some people there is a problem in the language of this german constitution (with Genderstern) because they can't identify with it but the thing they expect from half the population (i.e. females) at the same time is to identify with only the male expression.

The problem is not that "they can't identify", the problem is that the constitution is a legal document and in German legal documents should be gender neutral. The use of generisches Maskulinum is common in legal documents. And Genderstern should not be used in legal documents.

One aspect of legal language is that you can read out a text because there can be situations in meetings where parts of the constitution are read out loud. Unfortunately Texts with Genderstern cannot be read out. There are other ways of expressing gender neutrality that can be read out.

[geek-42]

@klaas1979 wrote

In the German speaking countries language is as of now a political thing. If you say "geschlechtergerechte Sprache" is left wing, or already the norm would miss the point. In my opinion there is no >98% group of speakers as Brian sees as goal.

Well there may be. This text is in the category of legal texts (and not a newspaper article). The absolute majority of official and legal texts do not use Gendersternchen. New text use other forms to express gender neutrality. But show me some official legal texts that use Gendersternchen. In the category of legal texts, Gendersternchen is the extreme minority.

Using Gendersternchen in a legal Text puts it into the 2% category.

[geek-42]

@brianjrobertson

That translation should use language that would strike nearly all (say, >98%) of native speakers as politically neutral.

To give you a bit of an analogy: the englisch version of the constitution has one place where gender neutrality is an issue. In 5.3.5 (c) the constitution says:

For each one, the nominator states why he or she believes their nominee would be a good fit for the Role, and no one else responds.

It does not use a gender pronoun like ze, sie, ey etc, but the authors have chosen to say he or she. Unfortunately there are more than 400 places in the German constitution where a decision has to be made how to handle gender. The official German language uses the male form but it was considered to be inclusive until recently. I think the discussion is similarly heated as the discussion about gender pronouns. The Gendersternchen is (one) way to abbreviate the explicit mentioning of the male and the female version of a word: instead of "he or she" you would write s*he or s:he or he/she.

• Gendersternchen is not considered official German
• Fact is very very few official and legal documents use Gendersternchen (few city administration decided to use it)
• Texts with Gendersternchen are hard to read out loud (there are no rule how to read s*he)
• Automatic text readers for blind people struggle to read texts with Gendersternchen (it seems that using ':' is better for blind people, because it introduces a pause in reading)
• More than 98% of the population do not use the equivalent spoken language (and it is not clear how to pronounce Gendersternchen).

[matthiask]

You cannot directly compare the english and the german version of the constitution, since the english language is much more neutral from the beginning. "Teacher" can refer to all genders, "Lehrer" definitely refers to male teachers only. While the issue can easily be ignored or circumvented in english it gets hairy quickly in german.

Regarding accessibility: It's not that simple. One can easily find recommendations one way or the other.

I know that we're discussing a constitution here. I'm not convinced that this automatically means that the Holacracy constitution should use the lowest common denominator. It's not as if governments were the most progressive institutions that exist. It seems to me that Holacracy tries to go new ways and using more inclusive language just seems like a completely logical part of that to me.

Finally, I'm happy that perspectives were offered in this thread by people who aren't white males, and will (probably) shut up now myself.

Thanks!

(Btw, the commend you refered to above wasn't made by me but my mirasant.)

[geek-42]

Proposal: use explicitly both forms

Taking @brianjrobertson constraints into account:

• There should be only one official German translation of the constitution, not two.
• That translation should use language that would strike nearly all (say, >98%) of native speakers as politically neutral.

I think the solution is ditch the Gendersternchen and use both forms

• "Partner*in" becomes Partner oder Partnerin"
• expressions like "diese*r Teilnehmende" makes no sense since "Teilnehmende" is already gender neutral
• etc

I think this would be an AQAL approach to the problem because it includes different view points.

Advantages

• it is inclusive because it takes the male and female form into account
• the text can be read out loud without ambiguity
• people at the Orange level or lower can accept it
• people at the Green level can accept it
• it is compatible with the English version of the constitution (where they chose "he or she")

Disadvantages

• makes the text longer
• it fells strange for people at the Orange level or lower
• it fells strange for people at the Green level

[klaas1979]

I do not see the Holacracy constitution in line with laws issued by countries or other authorities with rights to define law. I see it more in line with Frameworks like Scrum. As we discussed how we should handle gender, we included/discussed/took notice how Scrum is handling it: Der Scrum Guide. Btw the Nexus Guide 2021 an Agile Scaling Framework does it in the same way, as the Scrum Guide, but to be fair this are maybe the same or at least related people. They use the ":" as separator, something I prefer over the the "*".

I have not followed the gender discussions about the Scrum Guide for German, but I guess it could be interesting to dive deeper there. They Scrum Guide is from 2020 and has a bigger audience. To discover how people feel about this political wise, and this was the starting tension named, then data from this community would be very interesting. To be clear: I do not dig it up, I am just pointing to it.

To take the first two inputs, about "woke" and "left wing" I would dig into the culture of your company. Is the company using Agile, you said you are a Software Developer. Do you work agile (Scrum)? What came out of the discussions there?

Questions that come to my mind, reading it again where: Are you really having tensions in reading the stuff out loud in meetings? Do you really have the tensions that blind people now have a problem? Or are you coming up with additional tension you can imagine but not sense/feel? For my part, it would be interesting to get the single tensions out and solve them one by one. This would lead to wider solution space. Maybe we really would need a different version for visual impaired people, but then it would be great to hear from them.

[brianjrobertson]

Of course I don't speak German, so my advice here should be taken in that rather limited context; that said, I'd generally suggest it's better for the constitution's purpose to align with any language standards commonly used in legal contracts over a long period of time, over aligning with newer language standards or those used in non-legal documents, such as practice guides for Scrum or other similar documents in the agile space...

[geek-42]

@klaas1979

I do not see the Holacracy constitution in line with laws issued by countries or other authorities with rights to define law.

Well I think it is called constitution and not instruction manual for a reason. I defines "laws"...

[geek-42]

@klaas1979

Are you really having tensions in reading the stuff out loud in meetings?

Like legal documents there is a procedure when the document is read out loud before it is signed.

Do you really have the tensions that blind people now have a problem?

No that was indeed made up.....

However, more than one person in the organization raised the issue that the language chosen is at one extreme end of the spectrum. There are discussions within the organization about which language to use but the consensus is to use a more middle ground solution.

[geek-42]

@klaas1979

Companies that are going the self-organize path are normally using "Du-language", companies being alienated by "Du" instead of "Sie" are in this polarity less important as target for holacracy.

We use "Du" in our organization and the "Du-language" is not a problem.

[oliviercp]

I'm personally interested in this discussion but am holding off because I'm not familiar with the German cultural/linguistic context. At a meta level however, if I had to choose to follow standards from legal documents vs. the Scrum guide, I think the Holacracy constitution is closer to the former. It is not technically bound by the laws of any country, but it is meant to be compatible with/insert itself in the local legal framework.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the French translation of the constitution, since French language faces the same challenges as German regarding masculin/feminine. The French version has apparently opted to use the traditional language form of using masculin for general purposes. I don't know if this particular issue was raised or considered for French, it's just an interesting data point. I messaged @bernardmariechiquet (primary translator for French) in case he wants to contribute.

[oliviercp]

I know that we're discussing a constitution here. I'm not convinced that this automatically means that the Holacracy constitution should use the lowest common denominator. It's not as if governments were the most progressive institutions that exist. It seems to me that Holacracy tries to go new ways and using more inclusive language just seems like a completely logical part of that to me.

@matthiask it may be a minor point, but if this logic contributed to the decision for using "geschlechtsgerechte Sprache," I want to push back on it. (And if not, please ignore my comment for this thread, I'm not trying to open discussions about anything else). Just because something is relatively new and Holacracy is relatively new as well doesn't mean that they necessarily align — nor that they don't align, for that matter. I would be careful trying to make value associations between the Holacracy constitution and other cultural trends when it comes to its translation. If anything, I would try to make any translation as value neutral as possible.

I'm not blind to the point @denniswittrock made about the inability not to choose, and one could argue that a value statement is made by choosing one or the other language form. While I agree with that point, I also get the sense that "geschlechtsgerechte Sprache" is making more of a value statement than the "standard form" in German (I may be wrong here, but I infer this from this thread and my experience with French language). If that's indeed the case, then I see it as an argument in favor of using the "standard form".

[brianjrobertson]

Just to add to that last point of @ocompagne's, I actually found @denniswittrock's comment about that to be an argument for the "standard form", not against it (in this specific context of translating the Holacracy Constitution; I'm not arguing anything beyond that). If both the status quo and the new alternative have become "loaded", then better to choose the status quo, because then a reader doesn't necessarily know whether the document drafter actually did make a values-based decision; it's entirely possible that the drafter may have intentionally (or even unconsciously) just gone with the standard/default rather than making a choice. So going with the status quo signals that a values-based decision might have been made (but other reasons for it are possible too), while going with the new alternative definitely indicates a values-based decision was made.

[klaas1979]

Just interesting for people who can read German a more in depth discussion about geschlechtsgerechte Sprache based on legislation. Mabe use DeepL to get a good translation.

My first TLDR from the summary of the linked page:

1. by law there should be neutral language.
2. Using Gendersternchen i.e. "*", ":" or "/" is a solution as of now is disfavored by different bodies, especially by visual impaired.
3. It is preferred to use other constructs for neutral language.
4. Their is no common ground, how to do it, but "it should be done".

First opinion: If you would like to honour 1. neutral language it is easier to use 2. Gendersternchen, then to use 3. a "neutral" language translation as recommended by most institutions. This is because the neutral language uses different constructs, where the translation of the constitution would be more free. The language of the constitution is by no way easy with a lot of long sentence.

As Brian pointed out, it could be better to use the standard from, but as we discuss this now, nobody can use the argument that the status quo was choosen by chance. It would be a revert, that would need an explanation, because the drafter would now decide about "it". For usage the standard form is easier, following the law to use neutral language stands in contradiction.

Solutions:

1. Revert to a standard translation with no neutral language, as it would have been done some years ago. Would be from a point of understanding the rules the easiest way.
2. Make a more neutral translation with no Gendersternchen and using the proposed way, would be even longer and possible even harder to understand.

This is a decision where it is not a problem with a single correct answer, but a polarity to manage. To choose on of the solutions first a clear list of principals should be compiled: What are the goals of a translation, what principals to adhere to, are their any groundrules that must be taken into account? This would be Holacracy One definition thing, in combination with the translation steward. Armed with this principals a stringent case can be build for the final solution.

I for myself can build arguments for both cases. So for me without more guidelines to base a decision on, I would stick with the current form. With more tensions, like this one or other data points a sound decision would be easier. Just changing it now would not result in a real solution, but shift it in the opposite direction.

[geek-42]

Just to be clear: In Germany, most books, most newspapers and most speakers are using the "classical neutral language".

The majority of Germans disapprove gender language (I could not find an English version of the statistics):

The translation of the labels:

• 10% fully endorse gender language
• 16% rather endorse gender language
• 29% disapprove it
• 36% strongly disapprove it

Advocates are most likely to be found among supporters of the "Green Party"

[geek-42]

@klaas1979

• Using Gendersternchen i.e. "*", ":" or "/" is a solution as of now is disfavored by different bodies, especially by visual impaired.

The approach the holacracy translation has chosen is one of the potential ways of doing it, but it is not clear which version will finally win (if any of those solutions will eventually become standard)

• There is no common ground, how to do it, but "it should be done".

The use of Gendersternchen is clearly a message added to the constitution that goes beyond its content that mostly resonates with left party and green party supporters. But for the majority of German speakers, it makes the constitution harder to read and sends an irritating political signal (in the article you have linked, refers to the the same statistic I have quoted and there only 60% of left and green party voters support gender speech (which is more general than the extreme form of Gendersternchen)).

I think there are multiple reasons for rejecting Gendersternchen:

• linguistic: it adds alien characters to the language
• readability: it makes texts more complicated and less in sync with spoken language (as of today)
• aesthetic: lots of authors dislike it because it makes the language "ugly"
• political: those who are against this form of language induced "inclusion"

The argument against neutral language (using generic male form) are mostly political and there are some studies that show that women are more engaged when both (female and male) forms are used. I am not sure if that holds true for Gendersternchen.

Quote from the article

Die Linke zuletzt im September 2019 ausdrücklich erklärten, dass „im Interesse des flüssigen Lesens und der Maschinenlesbarkeit auf eine ‚gegenderte‘ Schreibweise zu verzichten“ sei. Translation: The Left last explicitly stated in September 2019 that "in the interest of fluent reading and machine readability, 'gender-spelling' should be avoided.

If we look at readability: the construction is in it self not an easy document, and gender speech is making it harder to read.

It is common for many documents and books to make a disclaimer similar to the one that "The Left" party is doing and then write the text in "normal" German for simplicity and readability...

[mirasant]

@geek-42 I think all those statistics need to be put in perspective. How old were those people that were questioned? Because language is a habit and we don't like to change habits when they seem well for us and we have had them for decades. My assumption would be (correct me if I'm wrong) that older people tend to have more aversions against this new "habit of language". I myself am a 26-year-old woman and I was raised too with not knowing anything about gender-neutral language. But I got to know the reasons behind it and now I can not unsee them.

Just because we have done things in the past in a certain way (and still do) doesn't legitimize that we should do them the same way in the future. So maybe it's less of a question about how it was done but more so one about what values are important to this community. I think to get an answer to this we should directly ask the Holacracy-Community and collect data there instead of using general data from Germany.

To end this: I also believe that there is no easy solution but personally I would be very sad if we just used the masculine forms only to make it simple again. Because simple is relative, once something's a habit, it will be much more simple. I think we should consider that in our decisions.

[kristinaanna]

It's 2022 and we do still discuss, if there should other gender than male be included? Like really?! Language is a tool which evolves with us society. So in the last century society found out, that women are part of it and should be included in the language (yay). Now we are in the next century and Germany introduced officially a third gender. To include this third gender, the use of a «Gendersternchen *» or the «Genderdoppelunkt :» is what makes sense. As a democratic society, we must not only give language and room to the people who are in power (mostly men and women), but also to minorities.

[klaas1979]

Dear @geek-42 in my opinion your argumentation is not sound. You take a survey of Gender-Speech support by political parties and say it is green or left wing, where nearly 50% of the people that declare themselves as green do not approve gender speak. In the same vain, the other parties do not disapprove it completely. this is a statistic about the political parties:

Standpunkte zur gendergerechten Sprache in den politischen Parteien:
Die oben aufgeführten Argumente Pro und Contra Gendersprache finden sich auch innerhalb der jeweiligen politischen Parteien der Bundesrepublik Deutschland:

Rund 64 % der Anhänger der CDU/CSU lehnen ein Gendering ab.
Bei der FDP sind es sogar rund 76 %.
Bei der AfD sieht es ebenso rund 64 %.
Bei der SPD sind es hingegen „lediglich“ rund 54 %, die ein verpflichtendes Gendern ablehnen.
Fürsprecher finden sich hingegen in den Reihen der Grünen und Linken, allerdings jeweils mit nur rund 60 %
[Stand: KW21 2021; Quelle: Infratest dimap]

How do you know that it is left-wing or green? The people doing the translation could be from all political parties and by no small chance. I could be voting for every party listed and there would be a fair chance that I approve Gender-speech.

BUT I cannot wrap my head around your argumentation and disapprove in making a thing political that was not in any way meant to be political. As a side note, your are citing german politics. The translation steward is from Switzerland (Xpreneurs), Dwarfs and Giants (D&G) the first german-language based holacracy provider is from Austria and had their part in the translation. The people supporting the translation from Germany have been from no company providing services regarding Holacracy but using Holacracy internal. You need to interpret this as a DACH thing (Deutschland, Austria, Schweiz), not a german one.

So even if your argument is stringent, it has nothing to do with the reality the translation is coming from. If the issue should be solved. There needs to be a solvable tension. You say it is charged political and state it as "clearly". I was part of the team and it was clearly never a political thing in my eyes. You make it so.

To boil it down, the tension that needs to be solved and was discussed is Accessability (like easy to read out loud, Screen-Readers, ...) and the German and I would guess DACH-laws to have neutral language. Just citing the German one:

Pflicht zur Gendersprache in der öffentlich-rechtlichen Verwaltung?
Wie bereits zuvor gezeigt, gibt es aufgrund Art. 3 Abs. 2 Satz 2 GG zur Gleichstellung von Frauen und Männern durchaus die Vorgabe, dies auch sprachlich zum Ausdruck zu bringen.

Another point that I cannot grasp is that you label the current language as "neutral". The people that are vouching for Gender-Speech and stuff say that it is not neutral, you cite one study where woman say it is neutral, but there are studies common to the opposite conclusion. So it does not help that you basically say: it is left-wing, where it could be from all political parties and say that the current language is "neutral", where it is not, and by this basically labelling the translation as political. And I am sure that this makes perfect sense for you. But as of now I would say it is not stringent.

I have to excuse myself because I brought up a link from a german legislation forum, but I was more referring to the general information and discussion and not about politial parties included therein. Maybe I did mislead you to come to false conclusions with this Link.

By all means dear translators prove my wrong, if I state the situation wrong.

An idea that could help to bring the tension to a solution could be, that the German-language based XING Group is having a meeting about this topic. It is quite hard to get a good understanding by comments on Github and video discussion to help shed light on the tensions.

[mirasant]

@klaas1979 If there will be a meeting: Please make sure that not only men that are only theoretically discussing this topic but at least also enough women (or other genders) are present. Because we are the ones that are actually affected by this decision.

@geek-42 Since this has been a tension you‘ve brought up: How many times did you actually need to read the constitution out loud? How hard is it then to make a little pause where the Genderstern is or to decide to change the gender that is spoken out equally. There are so many creative ways to solve the tension of readability without even changing the constitution itself. Just as an inspiration. This is all new and we still have to develop how it works best. But just going back to usual language is not the solution to me.

[bernardmariechiquet]

Out of curiosity, I looked at the French translation of the constitution, since French language faces the same challenges as German regarding masculin/feminine. The French version has apparently opted to use the traditional language form of using masculin for general purposes. I don't know if this particular issue was raised or considered for French, it's just an interesting data point. I messaged @bernardmariechiquet (primary translator for French) in case he wants to contribute.

Yes @ocompagne , we considered this topic before translating version 5.0 last summer. Some coaches in the eco-system pushed us to use inclusive writing, which we did not opt for because it is not the current usage and recognized by most people including the French academy. Most of the time, we have used the legal form (e) to make explicit the two genders: for example: un(e) Associé(e)

[Elenor-Xpreneurs]

Thanks to all the engaged contributors of this discussion! To have a dialogical conversation on a typically heated topic like this is not something to take for granted. As member of the translation team and "older" female, the Gendersternchen leaves me equally uncomfortable as not attempting any approach to gender-neutral language. And while translating I have made it my daily task to avoid as many *** as possible by reconstructing sentences.

I guess we could avoid about 20-30% of the remaining ** by deviating even more from the English original and I would definitely invest the time and energy to do it, if that would make a big enough change. Unfortunately, the language would, at a certain point, become less clear and accessible again (i.e. using "Moderation" instead of "Moderatorin", "Teilnehmende, Wählende, Führende, etc.).

In the midst of our translation "star wars" we even thought about just using male and female forms randomly, like some texts do. But that would be even less of a legal document quality and more of a political statement - though I actually like this approach, it makes me stop in mid-sentence and think about my well-trodden language and associated meaning - I still use generic masculine when speaking about myself as a "Berater", while at the same time associating an older white man with "Berater" when someone else uses it:)

From my perspective, there is no going back to generic masculine. The fact that a gender-neutral language hasn't found it's way into most current legal documents in the DACH region is from what I know just a matter of time and energy/passive resistance. It will happen. There is no going back, there is just a going through.

I hope to be still alive when we don't need complicated gender-neutral language, anymore, because the notion that women and other minorities have a lower value for society has become so ridiculous that parent's laugh with their kids about the past when people still thought that women couldn't be president or presidents were needed for successful national decision-making:))

[geek-42]

@klaas1979

How do you know that it is left-wing or green?

Here is a hypothesis: the vast majority of newspaper articles or books with political topics that use Gendersternchen have a left wing or green bias.

You can easily prove this hypothesis wrong by showing me some non-left-wing or non-green newspaper articles or books on a political topic that use Gendersternchen.

I was part of the team and it was clearly never a political thing in my eyes.

Sure, it was not an explicit political decision, it was implicit. Put a few right wing white old man in a room and let them decide on some topics and you will sense a right wing bias on the outcome.

So, my point is that the use of Gendersternchen was not a political decision but it sends a political signal and therefore makes the constitution a 'left wing and green' thingy.

[geek-42]

BTW: in Switzerland Gendersternchen is forbidden to be used by federal officers (Bundesbeamten) and in any official document or webpage

Two citations form the article that indicate that Gendersternchen is not socio-politicaly neutral:

Es sind längst nicht mehr nur linke Aktivist*innen, die das Zeichen verwenden, um sich geschlechtsneutral auszudrücken. Translated: It is no longer just left-wing activists who use the sign to express themselves in a gender-neutral way.

And:

Der Genderstern und ähnliche Zeichen seien zudem heute noch Zeichen einer bestimmten gesellschaftspolitischen Haltung. Translated: Moreover, the gender star and similar signs are still signs of a certain socio-political attitude today.

So, in Switzerland officials are not allowed to use Genderstern, because it is an expression of a " socio-political attitude". They want to have a neutral language.

So, if Switzerland is the "gold standard in neutrality", this is a strong signal.

[matthiask]

So, if Switzerland is the "gold standard in neutrality", this is a strong signal.

As a Swiss citizen I can say that Switzerland is the gold standard of doing nothing except if forced to. The last time that Switzerland was nothing else but backwards was in 1848 with the founding of the "modern" national state. Switzerland is especially backwards when it comes to the rights of women, minorities and people not having the swiss nationality. Just as an example, women can only vote in all of Switzerland since 1990. One shouldn't look at Switzerland in matters as are being discussed here. 🙂

[geek-42]

@matthiask

As a Swiss citizen I can say that Switzerland is the gold standard of doing nothing except if forced to.

well maybe it is not a gold standard but it still sends a strong signal that Gendersternchen is not neutral but the expression of a certain "socio-political attitude"....

[brianjrobertson]

Wow, this issue has gotten more posts from more people in a shorter period of time than any other I've seen in years on the English constitution forums (where most of the actual rule/content changes are discussed!). That fact itself, plus the content of many of these posts on both sides of the issue, leaves me feeling pretty clear that this is a politically charged topic. So I'd like to again point to my last comment on the issue, which seems even more relevant. And beyond that, all of the recent posts leave me feeling quite confident that the best approach here for the goals/needs of the constitution is to completely ignore the politics and broader cultural issues at play to the fullest extent possible, and do whatever a typical lawyer in the culture would do by default if drafting a legal document for a client with absolutely zero regard for any cultural sensitivity or cultural change/evolution goals whatsoever (of note, the posts arguing for keeping the current translation's choice are further reinforcing my stance here - if anything, I'm finding some of those posts even more convincing of this stance than the ones arguing directly for it). Of course I'm not making any comment on the broader issues at play here, or anything beyond just what's best for the constitution translation. For that specifically, I like to think I'm a fairly neutral party here, given that I don't actually speak German, and I also have fairly substantial expertise in the Holacracy field, what the constitution needs to achieve, and what works for/against those goals; given all that, I hope our Translation Steward will consider my perspective here with some weight.

Thanks everyone; this is a fascinating dialog for me, and I'm really enjoying and appreciating all of your perspectives!

[matthiask]

I just want to remind everyone here that the purpose of Holacracy One's organization is "Evolve humanity’s relationship to power."

I'm sure that falling back on what any lawyer would do isn't in agreement with this higher purpose.

But yeah, many many posts, and I feel that there isn't much I can add to this discussion anymore.

Thanks all!

[brianjrobertson]

Re:

I just want to remind everyone here that the purpose of Holacracy One's organization is "Evolve humanity’s relationship to power." I'm sure that falling back on what any lawyer would do isn't in agreement with this higher purpose.

My sense is exactly the opposite; this purpose is what I was tuned into when making my recommendation above.

[geek-42]

I agree with @brianjrobertson

I just want to remind everyone here that the purpose of Holacracy One's organization is "Evolve humanity’s relationship to power." I'm sure that falling back on what any lawyer would do isn't in agreement with this higher purpose.

My sense is exactly the opposite; this purpose is what I was tuned into when making my recommendation above.

My experience is that in many western organizations those in power who maintain the dominance hierarchy are particularly afraid of left wing anti hierarchical movements (if you are familiar with Ken Wilber and the Integral movement: this is the battle between Orange and Green) . Holacracy (which is second tier in Integral terms) is a shift from dominance hierarchies to competence or growth hierarchies (holarchies). It is probably much easier to convince women and minorities who are already "suppressed" to shift away from dominance hierarchies.

Those in power are typically old white heterosexual males, the "target" of the gender speech. Gender-speech wants to educate them in addition to empower women and suppressed minorities. I think holacracy is a great way to transform organizations to be more inclusive. Pissing off those who have to give up power with a subtext "holacracy is woke" is not a good strategy. Those in power often feel that the generic masculine is the natural way of expressing things. For them this is "objective" formal language and not "gender bullshit".

If the goal of Holacracy One is to transform as many organizations as possible and there is a choice to piss of those in power or to piss of the "suppressed", I would piss of the "suppressed", because in the long run holocracy will empower them. If you piss of the current decision maker, they will sabotage the introduction of holocracy and at the end they will stop the transformation.

Once holocracy is in place, then suppression patterns can be brought up as tensions and the formal process defined by the constitution will help to resolve them. Eventually it will even change the internal and external language.

Therefore I would use generic masculine and let the transformation happen from within. The rules of Holacracy are already a lot to swallow for those in power, don't make it harder...

In some way this is a win-win situation: the organization has less friction when introducing holacracy and in the long run the organization will be more inclusive. In the beginning the old white man have to swallow their loss of power and the "suppressed" have to swollow "male" language.

Therefore I think changing the translation

• add an preamble to explain that the generic masculine is used to simplify the text but it is inclusive by including women and diverse
• use the generic masculine

With those change it is compatible with "Evolve humanity’s relationship to power.".

"Evolving the relationship to power" is not done by changing language (which is a very weak mechanism) but it is done by transforming organizations (which is very powerful).

Holacracy is all about moving organizations to the second tier, AQAL, which means embracing all views (I, we, it and its) all structural levels (rungs). Let's speak with those in power in their language (generic masculine) and help them to move to the next level.

In this thread, I have learned a lot about myself and gender speech (from you and my own research) and apologize for my raw language. It was partly because my ideas have not been clear, but I it was partly on purpose because I wanted to have an open debate (and to represent a particular "anti-woke" view) to understand the motivation behind the choice of language to see the "shadows".

This is most probably my last post on this thread.

Thanks all!

[I made a few minor edits, in particular I fixed the quote]

[geek-42]

PS: decisions are typically made emotionally, and not rationally. The rational thinking is like a press secretary of the emotions: it has to justify whatever the decision was made. If you are interested in that topic I would strongly recommend the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt.

Initially, my gut feeling (and my peers ) told me that the translations should not use extreme gender language. This discussion helped me to formulate my thought in a rational way. I whish I could have written my last comment as the first comment and skipped the rest :smile:

[geek-42]

I have added a pull request to remove the Gendersternchen: https://github.com/holacracyone/Holacracy-Constitution-5.0-GERMAN/pull/5

You can review the differences here.

[geek-42]

For those not familiar with github, here is the fixed version of the translation: https://github.com/geek-42/Holacracy-Constitution-5.0-GERMAN/blob/patch-1/Holacracy-Verfassung.md

[pscheuerer]

@geek-42 I can relate to some of your reservations and I'm very glad to see that this thread has lead to a rich exploration and discussion of this topic.

In my role as translation steward for the German Holacracy Constitution I can assure you however that neither me nor any other member of the translation team had a "left-wing or extremely woke" agenda, when we set out to translate the latest version of the Holacracy Constitution. Our goal was to make the document more accessible, more concise and most importantly to provide a unified German version of the constitution. In order to achieve that the translation team comprised members of different organisations from the entire D-A-CH region.

As translation steward I understand my purpose to steward the German translation of the Holacracy Constitution, not to push a political agenda in either direction. It is also neither to support nor to prevent a political or any other ideology. Yet, of course the Holacracy constitution is always exposed to such trends and developments. This cannot be prevented but I'm trying my best - leaning on the perspectives of experts, colleagues and people who have stewarded Holacracy and the ecosystem around for a long time - to differentiate the constitution from those trends and developments and not to expose the constitution unnecessarily to the collateral damage of cultural tidings.

That being said, let me highlight two relevant assumptions and reference points that we held when we translated the constitution:

• one of the main reference points that we used was in terms of gender forms was the Guide to gender-sensitive formulation (Leitfaden zum geschlechtergerechten Formulieren) by the Swiss Federal Chancellery (this is the very same document that is quoted by the Blick article you mentioned). This guide "contains, on the one hand, the binding rules for gender-appropriate wording of official federal texts and, on the other hand, a variety of assistance, recommendations and tips for gender-appropriate wording" (DeepL translation). I recommend actually reading this document, as it provides a comprehensive, in-depth, nuanced and well balanced perspective on the topic. In this document, as well as in the update on the use of the gender *, the guide explicitly states that the generic masculine form is not allowed (Weisung der BK zum Genderstern, page 2). Interesting side note: the guide also contains the federal council resolution of June 7, 1993 on the equal treatment of women and men in the language of laws and administration (page 165), which indicates that this has been a development for a least 30 years, way before the term "woke" even existed.
• one of the main goals of the Holacracy Constitution v5 was to make it less verbose while maintaining (or even improving) legibility and clarity. For the German translation we opted for the gender star mainly because it allowed us to make the text gender neutral without always adding both genders explicitly, which is one of the recommended options on how to make texts gender neutral. What is indeed a new development is the update to the guide which recommends against using the gender star. As you can see by its publication date (June 17, 2021), the translation of the constitution was already nearly finished at that time (the translation team had its last working session on July 14, 2021). This update is definitely an interesting data point worth considering and I will spend some more time researching the most current guidelines and recommendations for Germany and Austria. If anybody has direct links to such documents, I would highly appreciate it if you could post them directly to this thread.

@brianjrobertson your suggestion to align to language standards used in legal texts and contracts is well taken. That is exactly why we used formal recommendations and guidelines from state authorities. Unfortunately with lawyers there is also no clear standard. Many lawyers are using the exact formulations and grammar devices that we used in the translation, but of course not all. I couldn't find any conclusive data or recommendations by an association of legal professionals. But I found some interesting blog posts, forum posts and a Wikipedia article on the topic that illustrate that there are ongoing debates about the use of gender neutral language in legal texts.

Based on all this, I have a) captured a project to reevaluate the use of the gender star (*) and possible alternatives b) decided that reverting to the use of generic masculine form is not a viable option

I am therefore closing this issue and I'm inviting everybody to make proposals for concrete improvements to this official version of this document rather than forking this document. Sidestepping the dialogue and having multiple versions of the constitution around doesn't serve the interests of the Holacracy community in my opinion.

[geek-42]

@pscheuerer

I can assure you however that neither me nor any other member of the translation team had a "left-wing or extremely woke" agenda

I am not saying that you or any other member of the translation team had a "left-wing or extremely woke" agenda. What I am saying is that Gendersternchen is perceived by the majority of German speakers as "left-wing or extremely woke". And an increasing number of German speakers dislike Genderspeach (and Gendersternchen is an extreme form of Genderspeach)

You can simply prove me wrong by showing me political texts (news paper article, or book) that uses Gendersternchen that are not "left-wing or extremely woke".

[oliviercp]

@pscheuerer Thank you for your response, especially for your clarification that this "new written language" is used broadly enough in legal documents that it can be considered 'standard' in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. I cannot verify the validity of that claim, but it's specifically what I would expect a translation of the constitution to strive for: appear to be written "normally" for the vast majority of people commonly referring to these types of documents.

Since we apparently have at least one use case where the current "gender star (*)" form is detracting a company from wanting to engage with Holacracy (or at least creating friction to do so), it sounds like a great concrete tension to address. I hope you and the translating team will be able to find a workable alternative.