Lesson 1.3: Who Drives ‘Anti-Gender’ Politics?

When imagining 'anti-gender' politics, it is easy to picture only populist leaders or powerful churches. But the RESIST Project demonstrates that anti-gender mobilisation is neither uniform nor contained within the far right. It is a flexible, opportunistic coalition that crosses ideological, institutional, and national boundaries. These alliances adapt their framing – children, women’s safety, secularism, parental rights, national heritage – to local political opportunities.

3. Feminism as a Trojan Horse

Despite differences, 'anti-gender' mobilisations draw on shared affective frames: innocence (children), purity (nation), nature (‘sex,’ family), divine order, and common sense (neutrality).

Trans-exclusionary & Sex work-exclusionary Networks

One of the most striking findings of the RESIST and other research is how some actors weaponise feminist vocabulary:

  • claiming to defend ‘women’s safety’ while opposing trans rights
  • appealing to liberal values to justify exclusion
  • erasing the intersectional experiences of racialised, disabled, or migrant women

As Ahmed (2021) notes, anti-trans feminism extends the reach of the right by giving moral credibility to exclusionary agendas.

How this works:

  1. Through feminist vocabulary – giving moral legitimacy to anti-trans or anti-sex-work policies.
  2. By bridging ideological divides – their narratives circulate in centrist and liberal media , blurring lines between left and right.
  3. By undermining intersectionality – for example, by defining womanhood in cis, white, able-bodied, heteronormative, and middle-class terms, while reframing opposition to gender and sexual equality as matters of ‘free speech,’ ‘biological reality,’ or ‘men’s rights’.

In doing so, it allows anti-gender politics to penetrate liberal spaces under the guise of protectionism and ‘common sense.’ Structural foundations 'anti-gender' discourse draws power from wider structural forces. Understanding these helps you recognise how anti-gender discourse draws legitimacy from broader crises.

Structural Manifestations 

'Anti-gender' discourse draws power from wider structural forces. Understanding these helps you recognise how anti-gender discourse draws legitimacy from broader crises.

Structural factor

Manifestation

Nationalism & sovereignty

framing gender equality as foreign interference

Colonial legacies & racism

narratives of laïcité policing Muslim communities, that is, the use of secularism as a framework to regulate, restrict, or discipline the public expression of Muslim religious, cultural, and gendered practices.

Post-socialist transitions

suspicion of ‘Western’ agendas in CEE states

Demography & migration

linking family values to anti-migrant policy

Neoliberal austerity

using moral panic to distract from economic decline

These structures shape why certain actors and narratives gain momentum. 

Attacking rights, knowledge, and justice

The impacts documented by RESIST include systematic attacks on:

  • Reproductive rights – abortion and contraception restricted under ‘pro-life’ or ‘demographic crisis’ frames.

  • Trans rights and healthcare – especially targeting minors and gender-affirming care, justified as child protection.

  • Feminist and queer knowledge – gender studies and intersectional theory dismissed as ideology; universities defunded or censored.

  • Academic freedom – scholars face harassment, legal threats, and funding cuts.

  • Inclusive education – school curricula including reliable information about  sexual and gender diversity are reframed as indoctrination.

  • LGBTIQ+ organisations and spaces – community centres and reproductive health services attacked as threats to morality.

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