The variety of anti-gender alliances and democratic backsliding in Turkey: fault lines around opposition to “gender ideology” and their political implications

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the politics of knowledge production and the affective politics of rising anti-genderism in civil society in contemporary Turkey with a focus on two main points: (1) the variety of actors and their different strategies opposing “gender ideology,” and (2) the effects of state–movement dynamics on the political efficacy of those strategies. The findings demonstrate that anti-gender alliances between state and civil society actors display a discursive plurality in Turkey in terms of how they manage the fluidity and heterogeneity of the opposition to “gender ideology” that links a wide range of concerns about feminist ideas, movements, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex (LGBTI+) rights. Providing a typology of the different forms of opposition to “gender ideology,” the article concludes that in the recent era the right-wing populist regime in Turkey has redrawn its alliances in the gender policy field, accommodating illiberal actors’ anti-gender demands and anti-equality policy visions. This shift toward an aggressive performance of anti-genderism renders gender equality politics more contentious through a polarizing populist form of knowledge production and affective politics and even destabilizes gender equality policies that have already been accepted.