Lesson 3.1: Institutional and Everyday Impacts of ‘Anti-Gender’ Politics

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This lesson traces how ‘anti-gender’ mobilisations move from rhetoric to structure. It examines how governments, media actors, and local institutions translate ideological hostility into concrete actions: restrictive laws, censorship, defunding, surveillance of civil society, policing of public spaces, and subtle forms of bureaucratic exclusion. You will see how these mechanisms interact, forming an infrastructure of discrimination that affects everyday life.

4. Public space as a battleground

Public space has become a symbolic battlefield. Schools, libraries, museums, and festivals are targeted as ‘sites of moral corruption.’ ‘Anti-gender’ attacks aim to reclaim public space for conservative values and to re-establish heteronormativity as the default of public culture.

  • In France, far-right groups disrupted school events on gender equality, claiming to defend ‘parental rights.’
  • In Switzerland, harassment campaigns forced the cancellation of drag story hour events and queer cultural activities.
  • In Poland, Pride marches and feminist protests have faced counter-mobilisation alongside either police inaction or the use of direct coercive measures, such as during the ‘Rainbow Night’ protests of summer 2020 and the Women’s Strike protests of fall–winter 2020–2021.
  • In Spain, counter-protests against Pride events and feminist mobilisations have in some cases been organised by trans-exclusionary feminist groups (TERFs), illustrating how opposition to gender and sexual equality can also emerge from within spaces that claim feminist legitimacy.

Exercise

In August 2020, the attempted arrests of two queer activists, Margot and Łania from the Stop Bzdurom [Stop Bullshit] collective, sparked protests in Warsaw that resulted in the detention of 48 individuals by the police. The events of August 7 were later referred to as the ‘Rainbow Night’ or ‘Polish Stonewall.’

Read the following article from New East Digital Archive that features conversations with Margot, Łania, and other members of the Stop Bzdurom collective: 

https://www.new-east-archive.org/features/show/12906/stop-bzdurom-poland

Reflect on the following questions:

Margot describes a violent encounter involving the police: 

  • How does this incident reflect broader issues of trust between marginalised communities and law enforcement?
  • In what ways can such experiences impact community participation in activism?

In the context of control over public spaces: 

  • How do you interpret the activists’ decision to incorporate performance elements into their resistance strategies?
  • What strategies are mentioned in the article?
  • What motivations for performance-based activism are highlighted by the activists in the article?

Thinking about strategies and tacktics:

  • Why does Margot emphasize focusing on public attitudes less and prioritise self-help groups instead?
  • What does this tell us about the immediate needs of the community?
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