@kitten That is the textbook version, yes („generisches Maskulinum“).
An increasingly used (and hated by conservatives & those further right) solution is to connect the base form and gendered ending with an asterisk, e.g. „Ingenieur*in“ (engineer). There are other variants, but so far none has become broad consensus and standard language yet.
Some people use that for pronouns, too („ein*e“), and there's the option of phrasing things to mostly avoid pronouns.
@airtower@kitten in many cases you can avoid gendered language with a bit of skill, but that takes effort even for native speakers and often relies on neutral plural forms (you can say “Studierende” - derived from the verb studieren, “those who study” - instead of “Studenten” (generic masculine plural) or “Student*innen”)
@airtower@kitten this particular approach only avoids the generic masculine plural for mixed groups, it doesn’t work for a single person of undetermined gender
@airtower@kitten there is also a very light-hearted approach popularized years ago by an Austrian artist, writer, and gay rights activist who became famous with kink-centered performance art: using -y. So instead of Präsident or Präsidentin, it would be Präsidenty, Ärzty, Autofahry. That also works for singular forms, but it's a bit silly and rather uncommon^^
@airtower@lis@kitten unfortunately the German-speaking world is currently flooded with the entire political right trying to ban gender-neutral language under the premise of “free speech”, so the necessary processes to find a social consensus on how to solve this issue won’t take place any time soon
@lis@kitten I'd say those bans (or attempts) are an attempt to stop the already ongoing process, but yes, it'll probably take a while to reach something resembling consensus…
there is also the even less formal option used in some bubbles — replacing the suffix with y: Ärzty, Ingenieury, Kollegy, …
And of course one could try to use/find (formally correct) neutral forms, even if that can be difficult sometimes (and often takes the path of describing a role or what a person is doing, which can bring other problems): Lehrkraft, Studierende, Fahrgast, Mitarbeitende, …
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