Intra-feminist disputes in the context of rising opposition against gender equality and LGBTI rights: Implications for democracy

Abstract

In the last decade, Europe has witnessed the exponential rise of opposition against gender equality and LGBTI rights by anti-gender and radical right populist actors. This has fostered the proliferation of literature on the topic. Given the mutually reinforcing relation between gender equality, LGBTI rights, and democracy, the impact of such opposition on democracy has emerged as a key theme within this literature. As a result, however, the literature tends to address anti-gender and radical right populist actors, on the one hand, and feminist and LGBTI actors, on the other hand, as two closed and antagonistic blocks, identifying the former as inherently anti-democratic and the latter as democratic by definition. This ignores conflicts between and within feminist and LGBTI actors as well as their own anti-democratic features. Crucially, it disavows debates that internally divide feminist and LGBTI actors. Such internal debates revolve around controversial gender and sexuality issues such as sex work, surrogacy and trans rights, where positions in favour and against can be defended as advancing women’s and/or LGBTI rights. Hence, anti-gender and radical right populist actors may capitalise on such internal debates, strategically engaging with them in order to present themselves as progressive and to exacerbate the internal divisions of feminist and LGBTI actors. This panel examines recent debates around such controversial issues across Europe, to develop a more nuanced understanding of the relation between gender equality, LGBTI rights and democracy in the context of rising opposition against gender equality and LGBTI rights. The papers within this panel address the current politicisation of issues such as abortion, trans rights, sex work, and LGBT equality at national and supranational levels. Moreover, the contributions scrutinise the complex interactions between feminist, LGBTI, anti-gender, and radical right populist actors from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.

Title	Details
Turning the Lens: Feminist Anti-Prostitution Campaigns in Europe as Instances of De-democratisation	View Paper Details
Queer Domination or Dominating the Queer? Enforcing LGBT Equality in times of Dissensus	View Paper Details
Navigating abortion politics in the UK: a feminist institutionalist analysis of intra-feminist power struggles and external resistance	View Paper Details
Discourse coalitions and the mainstreaming of the far right: the case of reactionary feminist media	View Paper Details