A sharp accusation from within the ranks: the SPD is using a “queer-hostile” line of argument, where women are pitted against non-binary people. This critique comes from Ray Wieber (she/her), deputy chair of the Jusos Hildesheim, who, together with four other nonbinary SPD members, is voicing concerns. Specifically, Wieber points to the SPD’s gender quota, which requires that women and men each make up at least 40 percent of the party’s roles and mandates.
Since 2022, the SPD has indeed adopted a guideline that regulates the admission of people with a diverse gender marker into the party’s electoral rules. Nonbinary individuals can, for instance, be elected to all seats on a candidate list. In multi-person bodies, however, the 40 percent quota must be observed. This quota, however, only counts male and female genders.
Nonbinary people are partly not electable
“Even at the time, it should have been clear that diverse people were being excluded by the gender quota,” Wieber notes and cites an example: “Diverse individuals and people who do not disclose their gender are, in smaller list and council elections with an even number of seats, simply not electable. On a four-seat list, at least two men and two women must be represented to satisfy the 40% quota. A diverse person cannot be elected.”
When one gender reaches the maximum 60 percent quota in a list race, another round of voting takes place in which only the previously underrepresented gender can be elected. Diverse people are, by rule, excluded from this second round. The gender quota thus creates a “structural disadvantage” for nonbinary individuals, Wieber argues.
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Wieber has experienced this bias firsthand as a nonbinary party member. In September 2025, she was elected to a list seat for the SPD district party convention in Hanover for the Niedersachsen state party convention—but ultimately was not delegated because many men moved up via the gender quota. “The gender quota ensures that diverse people are always at a disadvantage in this system. We can be left out, but not brought in,” Wieber criticizes. She calls on the party leadership to make the guideline governing the consideration of members of diverse genders or without gender assignment non-discriminatory, or to propose a corresponding amendment to the party statutes at the next federal party congress.
SPD party leadership intends to reexamine the rule
Asked by TheColu.mn, the SPD party leadership’s press office stated: “There are plans to review the leadership’s guideline on the consideration of members of diverse genders or those without a gender designation in the election rules, specifically with regard to disadvantages in small delegations.”
The SPDqueer working group, however, clearly backs the demands of the nonbinary SPD members: “We take the criticisms of our nonbinary comrades very seriously and support calls for real equality and participation for all members, regardless of gender,” SPDqueer told TheColu.mn. Like Ray Wieber, they point to the intersectionality of queer rights: “It would be wrong to pit women’s rights against the rights of nonbinary people. Both belong together. We need gender quotas that protect everyone who experiences patriarchal discrimination at the structural level because of their gender.”
