Gender-neutral toilets: University plans vs. AfD criticism in MV!

Gender-neutral toilets: University plans vs. AfD criticism in MV!

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, there are no additional financial resources available for top research at universities between 2026 and 2030. This decision has already led to an intensive debate, especially with regard to university policy and priorities in research. The University of Greifswald, on the initiative of the student body, is planning the introduction of gender -neutral toilets. However, this project is sharply criticized by the AfD parliamentary group in the state parliament.

Paul Timm, a university policy spokesman for the AfD, describes the University of Greifswald as a "open royal house for left -wing spinning". He calls for more focus on research and teaching as well as adequate financing of these areas. Timm questions to what extent gender -neutral toilets can contribute to nuclear fusion research and sees the University of Greifswald as an example of questionable priorities in university policy.

Financial framework conditions

The AfD also warns that the financial resources were not sufficient to be able to compete in the competition for academic excellence. Therefore, the parliamentary group calls for targeted support measures, in particular start -up financing for excellence clusters and higher co -financing by the state government. In this context, the EU structural fund is important for the period 2021-2027, which provides Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 38.5 million euros from the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDR) in order to promote application-oriented excellence research projects. The strengthening of top scientific research and knowledge transfer is also aimed at, which is also associated with the support of the regional innovation strategy for intelligent specialization (RIS) ( government-mv.de ).

The planned measures aim to support inter- and transdisciplinary research clusters and individual projects that are characterized by the state interest. This happens in the hope of further developing excellent research results from various projects.

gender -neutral toilets as an education topic

In the university landscape, the topic of gender -neutral toilets is not new. More and more universities in Germany, especially in Lower Saxony and Bremen, have already established unisex toilets. This development is seen as an important sign against discrimination, especially for people who do not clearly identify as a woman or man. The introduction of gender-neutral toilets should reduce the waiting times at events and is in line with existing initiatives at various universities, such as the University of Göttingen and the Hawk University of Applied Sciences, which have already set up unisex toilets ( research-und-lehre.de ).

The debate about gender-neutral toilets in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is therefore in the field of tension between social acceptance and the financial framework of the academic landscape. The country must therefore decide how its resources in education and research policy would like to use in the future.