Anti-gender Movements Research Articles

Spring Fever in The Netherlands: Framing Child Sexuality in Sex Education and Its Controversies

In spring 2023, controversy arose over Spring Fever, an annual campaign to promote sexual and relationship education in primary schools in The Netherlands. This led to parliamentary questions and even death threats against employees of Rutgers, The Netherlands Center on Sexuality, which developed the program. This article examines how child sexuality was framed both in the Spring Fever project and in the resulting controversy. The analysis is based on newspaper articles from March to June 2023. One premise of Spring Fever is that children are seen as sexual agents able to develop their sexuality safely through age-appropriate education, which aims for children’s healthy development, including negotiating consent and experiencing pleasure. During the 2023 controversy, discourses of childhood innocence emerged in response to this, alongside accusations of focusing too much on “woke” themes, such as gender diversity. This paper concludes that, due to global anti-gender movements and local right-wing politics, the Dutch model of sex education—pragmatic, comprehensive, and evidence-based, as seen in Spring Fever—no longer maintains its depoliticizing effect. Additionally, the Spring Fever controversy signals a shift in the politics of sexual nationalism in The Netherlands.

When and why do anti-gender movements fail?

When and why do anti-gender movements fail?

“Gender Ideology” as a Strategic Enemy of the Radical Right in South America: The Cases of Bolsonaro and Milei

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the construction of “gender ideology” (GI) as a strategic enemy of the radical right in a context of radicalisation of neoliberalism in South America. Drawing on studies on the radical right and anti-gender movements, the paper suggests that the growing influence of feminist and LGBTQI+ struggles have been contested by the cultural backlash of conservative mobilisations and of the radical right. In that framework, the paper shows the confluence between religious and political anti-gender activism, recovering epistemic, moral, ideological and geopolitical dimensions that explain the erection of GI as a strategic and absolute enemy of the radical right. Then, the paper discusses anti-gender movements as a reaction against advances in sexual and reproductive rights and analyses the similarities and differences between discourses, policies and contexts of Milei and Bolsonaro. Hence, the article discusses how GI has enabled a right-wing intersectionality, which defends racial, gendered and class hierarchies against the movements that challenge them. It concludes by posing authoritarian neoliberalism and radical right-wing populism as a threat to liberal democracy and the rule of law.

Is Fairyland for Everyone? Mapping online discourse on gender debates in Hungary

Abstract Over the past decade, Hungary has become a noteworthy example of democratic backsliding, marked by a pronounced shift towards conservative values and traditional gender roles within government policies. This trend, centred around Christian principles, has manifested in political campaigns actively opposing LGBTQ+ rights and the challenging of normative family structure. The resultant media campaigns and policy implementations have ignited extensive public discourse on gender and sexuality, prominently visible on social media platforms. This study conducts a qualitative analysis of the online discussion surrounding the LGBTQ+ children’s book, Fairyland Is for Everyone, to explore the contemporary gender discourse in Hungary. By examining social media comments under Hungarian online news articles, the research identifies three prevailing discursive lenses—heteronormative familism, neocolonialism, and diversity and inclusion—illustrating both the concurrent rise of anti-gender movements and the fortification of LGBTQ+ allyship in Hungary, while also considering broader transnational trends in LGBTQ+ rights and visibility.

Gendering democracy: feminist parliamentary responses to opposition against gender equality

ABSTRACT Gendering democracy in parliaments faces a wave of active opposition against gender equality by far-right parties and anti-gender movements in Europe. In this adverse context, advancing gender equality policies relies on discourses and practices that address this opposition. What are the feminist parliamentary strategies to respond to anti-gender far-right opposition? This article studies feminist responses articulated in the Catalan parliament, the most gender-sensitive regional parliament is Spain, from the entry in 2021 of the far-right party Vox through interviews with members of Catalonia’s parliament and analysis of parliamentary debates. Whilst parliamentary groups and individuals respond through coalition-building, rule-making, knowledge production, and everyday pragmatic engagement with the far right, the Parliament as an institution appears less responsive. We identify new categories of responses, such as institutionalization of gender equality and protection and support. The gender-sensitive Catalan parliament shows how the disruptive impact of far-right anti-gender opposition on parliamentary democracy and equality goes beyond its small representation, by triggering polarization that jeopardizes parliamentary debates on gender equality and pushes them outside the parliament. Yet, the strength of the institutionalization of gender equality and alliances and the role of feminist civil society and critical actors equip the parliament to counter anti-gender opposition.

Anti-genderism in Turkey: Masculinist entrenchment through cultural intimacies

Anti-gender movements jeopardise the rights of minoritised groups including women and LGBTQ+ people. Examining the existing literature on anti-genderism and the context in Turkey, this paper relates neoliberal conservative social policies and anti-rights front to top-down masculinist entrenchment, mainly operationalising cultural intimacies. The paper examines the main beneficiaries of anti-genderism in Turkey, articulated into top-down masculinist entrenchment aligned with self-preservation, victimhood discourses and the performance of swashbuckling masculinity. Anti-gender politics mainly operate as part of a top-down social engineering project drawing on the logic of masculinist protection and their reception at the grassroots level is predicated on cultural intimacies forged through mutual recognition and reciprocal relationships, which also maintains hegemonic authoritarian political and neoliberal economic order. Although outright support for anti-genderism is still limited in society, the current majoritarian-authoritarian-securitarian political agenda might exacerbate this in future. Hence, we present a comprehensive analysis of how top-down anti-gender politics are negotiated through cultural intimacies in wider society.

An analytic framework for theorizing the anti-gender agenda in education

This article theorizes the global anti-gender movement in education. This conservative movement opposes “gender ideology,” which is perceived as a threat to traditional social values. Building on a systematic literature review of how the anti-gender movement shapes educational policies, politics, and practices, with a specific focus on Brazil and the US, this article presents a theoretical framework for conceptualizing: 1) the contested meanings of “gender ideology”; 2) its discursive components; 3) the characteristics and composition of anti-gender alliances; 4) the anti-gender agenda’s manifestations in curriculum, pedagogy, the social relations of schooling, and education policy. We attempt to highlight the ways in which anti-gender politics often operate together with racial politics to reveal the ways in which conservative, right-wing alliances, frequently predicated on and united through anti-Blackness, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny, exert influence on educational policies, politics, and practices to simultaneously maintain a white supremacist, cis-heteronormative, and patriarchal state. We conclude with a discussion of the contradictions of this agenda and resistances to these conservative attacks on equity, inclusion, diversity, and human rights.

Telling Feminist Stories in an Affective Atmosphere of Anti-Genderism: Swedish Gender Scholars Reflect Upon Their Position

ABSTRACT The last decades have witnessed a widespread rise in populist, right-wing, anti-gender movements targeting gender-equality politics and gender studies throughout Europe. While the situation for Swedish gender studies remains relatively stable, with institutionalized gender departments, this paper focuses on how Swedish gender studies scholars conceive of their situation and the status of gender studies in the current era. Through an interview study drawing on the concept of “affective atmosphere”, the article explores how the anti-gender discourse induces a precarious situation that produces a sense of apocalypse and a crisis of hope for gender studies. As such, the anti-gender discourse calls upon scholars to react and engage. In the interviews, the future of gender studies was discussed as being at risk, while at the same time the interviewees described gender studies as an academic success story. However, to avoid falling into the trap of being either too optimistic or too pessimistic about the current state of the art, the authors argue that the knowledge production of gender studies as such can be reconfigured as a site for resistance, for detecting openings and creating possible pathways into the future that extend beyond the hegemonic neoliberal, authoritarian one.

#FrauenSagenNein - bridging the divide: analyzing the affective network of gender-critical alliances

ABSTRACT The influence of anti-gender movements is on the rise globally as they seek to prevent the expansion of transgender rights. In Germany, the anti-gender debate has gained renewed intensity in the wake of the publication of the draft Self-Determination Act in June 2022. Within this discourse, two prominent groups of actors emerged: gender-critical feminists and right-wing populists. Despite their divergent ideological and political positions, the affordances of social media provide them with a platform for collaborative interactions. Thus, under issue-related hashtags, the boundaries between these actors are becoming increasingly blurred. This research utilizes affect theory and analysis of hashtag activism to investigate the collective protest on Twitter against the proposed Self-Determination Act. Employing social network analysis (SNA), the study identifies pivotal structures and actors within the #FrauenSagenNein (#WomenSayNo) network. Additionally, qualitative content analysis delves into the narratives and sentiments employed in constructing hostile portrayals of transgender individuals. The findings illustrate that #FrauenSagenNein served as a bridging tool that connects gender-critical feminists and right-wing populist actors, leading to their intersection. Based on these findings, it is vital to critically monitor such alliances to counter the spread of binary gender norms and heteronormative beliefs.

The anti-gender movement and the populist radical right in Italy: a symbiotic relationship

The political landscape of Italy experienced a seismic shift in the September 2022 elections, marking a watershed moment. Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the populist radical right party (PRRP) Brothers of Italy, was elected as Italy’s head of government. This event highlighted a significant development in the country’s gender politics, reflecting the ascent of PRRPs across Europe, marked by their reactionary politics, emphasis on traditional values and staunch opposition to gender equality. This study focuses on the dynamics between PRRPs (Brothers of Italy and the League) and the anti-gender movement in Italy. Through a qualitative content analysis of the primary sources of political parties and movements, the research explores their symbiotic relationship, the linkage and adjustment mechanisms employed by both actors, and the political outcomes of their interactions, offering insights into the mobilization of anti-gender actors and their alliance with PRRPs. It contributes to understanding how the organized opposition to gender equality is mainstreamed within political spheres, especially in contexts where right-wing populists hold power.

Technocultural worldings: dialectical dynamics in contemporary media landscapes

ABSTRACT In this piece, which frames the special issue “Technocultural worldings,” we build on previous editions of commentary and criticism in this journal. We propose a theoretically anchored way to systematically approach the dynamic, multidimensional, and heterogeneous technocultural communities that have created their own worldings and are engaged in complex dialectical dynamics within the contemporary media landscape. The technocultural communities that are part of these dialectical dynamics are constituted, on the one hand, by the complex collective sense-making of the emancipatory political programs of feminist and LGBTI+ initiatives and, on the other, by the retrogressive mobilizations of far-right and anti-gender movements. Hence, we argue that these worldings come into being due to the ability conferred by digital spaces to incorporate both material and virtual components in performances of gender and sexuality, in all their complex diversity. These issues are explored in more detail in eight articles, grouped into two discretely separate sections, one exploring emancipatory technocultural worldings, while the other describes retrogressive technocultural worldings.

‘The West Is Trying Too Hard’: Gender and the Right-Wing Critique of Globalization

This paper examines how the term ‘gender’ has been re-signified by the right-wing actors in contemporary struggles around globalization. First, we offer a chronology of debates concerning global diffusion of gender norms, tracing the consolidation of various groups into the anti-gender movement. The next section discusses how gender and globalization intersect in discursive strategies of anti-gender actors. We show that they target international institutions and norms portraying them as a western cosmopolitan force, claiming to speak on behalf of local populations and obfuscating their transnational embeddedness. The aim is to moralize and blur the boundaries between the local and the global—a strategy we call chameleon tactics. The final part examines how chameleon tactics unfolded in the specific context of the 2019 ICPD25 Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, and how an anti-globalist frame was used to blur the global identity of anti-gender organizations present there.

Confronting complex alliances: Situating Britain’s gender critical politics within the wider transnational anti-gender movement

Britain has recently gained notoriety as a global hotspot for anti-trans politics and ‘gender critical’ feminism. But what is the relationship between British ‘gender critical’ politics and the transnational ‘anti-gender’ movement? Does Britain’s gender critical feminism directly align with the global trends of anti-gender mobilisations, including the latter’s authoritarian and neofascist tendencies? This commentary argues for a context-specific analysis of the British gender-critical movement which is attentive to its divergent political orientations. While some strands of gender-critical politics are openly allied with far-right politics and are explicitly anti-feminist, others include prominent figures from left-wing positions, including left feminists and lesbians. Challenging gender-critical politics in Britain requires a reckoning with its cross-political nature and an analysis of the factors that unite these different strands across left and right.

Contestation of Women’s Reproductive Rights by Anti-Gender Movement in Croatia

Unatoč političkim i aktivističkim rezultatima feminističkog pokreta koji su doveli do priznavanja seksualnih i reproduktivnih prava kao ljudskih prava u drugom dijelu 20. stoljeća, danas diljem svijeta svjedočimo derogiranju već stečenih prava žena, kao i uskraćivanju i otežavanju (reproduktivnog) samoodređenja žena i parova. Ovaj radistražuje na koji se način taktika pravne mobilizacije i unutarinstitucionalno djelovanje, kojim se antirodni pokret u Hrvatskoj služi za promicanje uskraćivanja reproduktivnih prava žena, koriste za osporavanje i ograničavanje prava žena. Naime, znanstvena je literatura utvrdila transnacionalni karakter antirodnog pokreta i identificirala podudarne taktike u mnogobrojnim državama, a jedna od taktika je pravna mobilizacija. Korištenjem kritičke analize diskursa prikazano je na koji način hrvatski antirodni pokret koristi pravnu mobilizaciju tako što unutarinstitucionalno djeluje pokretanjem postupaka za ocjenu suglasnosti propisa s Ustavom, a istovremeno i izvaninstitucionalno poduzima niz aktivnosti, poput okupljanja i prosvjeda, kojima nastoji ograničiti seksualna i reproduktivna prava žena. Rezultati pokazuju da hrvatski antirodni pokret u korpusu analiziranih tekstova djeluje u kontekstu triju temeljnih diskurzivnih okvira: zaštite svjetonazora većine postignutog oblikovanjem scenarija prijetnje, diskreditiranja pravana prekid trudnoće tako što se to pravo prikazuje kao nasljeđe prethodnoga socijalističkog političkog sustava bivše Jugoslavije i prijetnje “rodnom ideologijom”.

Co-creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces across Europe (CCINDLE): Counteracting Anti-gender through Feminist Knowledge

Abstract: The construction of feminist democratic societal projects relies on the production of feminist knowledge and ideas within social movements, as well as academic, professional, and institutional settings. In the context of a rising opposition against democracy and gender, race, and sexuality equality at a global level, the European Union has launched the call Feminisms for a New Age of Democracy with the purpose of supporting knowledge production about opposition to gender equality in Europe and feminist democratic responses. The CCINDLE (Co-creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces across Europe) project is one of the funded research projects under this call. CCINDLE's objectives include analyzing not only anti-gender politics and the problems that they create for democracy in Europe but especially feminist movements' and institutional responses to anti-gender and anti-democratic forces. The project aims to co-create feminist knowledge with the actors that are already working to counter the antidemocratic project that anti-gender movements and far right parties are trying to construct, and to envision feminist futures building on theories and practices of intersectional justice, inclusion, and participation in European democracies.

How did an anti-gender movement develop in Brazil?

How did an anti-gender movement develop in Brazil?

Introduction: Quo Vadis Turkey? Encounters with sustainable patriarchy and resistance of women

ABSTRACT This article introduces a Special Section on sustainable patriarchy in Turkey. It places developments in Turkey within a wider context of global anti-gender movements, in which gender functions as a glue to bond various conservative actors together. It defines what sustainable patriarchy is and suggests why Turkey is a suitable case to examine its various manifestations.

State-Led Antigender Politics, Islamism, and the University

Abstract Gender studies and its professors are attacked and oppressed by patriarchal, masculinist, antifeminist, and anti-LGBTI discourses and institutional practices. This trend is not limited to white- and/or Christian-majority countries, as the literature has documented thus far. Antigender campaigns can easily infiltrate Middle Eastern and/or Muslim-majority contexts in which feminists and queers have long struggled to transform societies, cultures, and states. In Turkey a state-led antigender movement has been unfolding, with burdensome outcomes for women and sexual minorities as well as activists and faculty members. The most recent step taken in the state-led antigender turn was Turkey’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention Action by a precipitous presidential decree. Drawing on thirty-three interviews with gender studies scholars, this article documents their ambivalent and perturbing connection with the state. The recent antigender atmosphere may make them feel downtrodden, silenced, and vulnerable in personal and professional domains, while it rejuvenates their resilience, renders their ongoing feminist/queer struggles meaningful and passionate, and cultivates an air of hope and optimism. To fight ostracism by public institutions and to attain their academic rights, the respondents use their empowering feelings, hope, and commitment against patriarchal and homophobic state forces.

'I'm Real, Not You': Roles and Discourses of Trans Exclusionary Women's and Feminist Movements in Anti-gender and Right-wing Populist Politics

This article offers a comparative inquiry concerning the rise in visibility, relevance, and power of trans exclusionary women’s and feminist movements in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) between 2015 and 2022.  It focuses on two case studies concerning trans rights: the successful campaign for Bill C-16 in Canada, and failed reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the UK. In both cases, key streams within trans exclusionary women’s and feminist movements increasingly engage in collaborative action with right-wing populist-centered anti-gender coalitions, which include right-wing religious, conservative, and right-wing extremist actors, from approximately 2016. It argues that a key role of women’s and feminist actors in these coalitions is to help legitimize, amplify, and give meaning to anti-gender and right-wing populist appeals and, therein, the politics of exclusion they promote. This occurs in part, it is argued, through symbolic appeals concerning authenticity and the non-materiality of trans lives; the promotion of narratives concerning conflicts in rights; and the provision of strong imagery, narrative, and emotional appeals concerning threat. These broad developments have had various important effects. In the UK, the combination of so-called ‘radical’ as well as ‘traditional’ actors within anti-gender coalitions, has been critical in challenging progress towards trans and broader (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Intersex, and Queer) LGBTIQ+ rights. In Canada, although anti-gender movements have enjoyed less policy success during this period, women’s and feminist actors have helped popularize and provide legitimacy to wider coalitions. 

The Anti-gender and Gender-critical Roots of the Italian Anti-trans Parent Activism

Between 2020 and 2021, the fight against the hate crimes bill proposal on discrimination and violence based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability marked a pivotal moment in the ongoing mobilization against LGBTQ+ rights in Italy. Proposed by the main center-left party, the Bill proposal encountered a strong opposition both by right-wing and by MPs of the progressive area itself. In particular, the category of gender identity was targeted as a danger, a confused notion, a trojan horse of the “gender ideology”, etc. The Bill first adopted by the Lower House was later blocked at the Senate, thanks to the decisive action of Senator Simone Pillon, a founder and member of the Italian anti-gender movement, elected in 2018 with the radical right party of the League, led by Matteo Salvini. Anti-gender groups such as ProVita & Famiglia and Family Day, who had been campaigning against "gender theory" and "LGBT ideology" for over a decade, led this battle from outside the Parliament, online and in the streets, but also inside the Senate, during the parliamentary auditions to which they were massively invited to participate.