Preferred type of gender-neutral language use

The chart documents which forms of gender-neutral language are preferred among sports-interested respondents in Germany (February 2023) who have already stated support for gendering in principle. Five written variants are compared: slash, asterisk, colon, indented I, and underscore.

The slash form leads clearly at 41%. The asterisk ranks second at 22%, followed by the colon at 17%. Together, these three variants account for 80% of stated preferences. The indented I is chosen by 13% of respondents. The underscore trails at 7% — the lowest value across all five options. The spread between the top-ranked and bottom-ranked variant spans 34 percentage points.