Blurring Boundaries – On the points where ‘Anti-Gender’ Ideology Meets Feminist and LGBTIQ+ Discourses

Abstract

Our panel emerges from the book Blurring Boundaries – ‘Anti-Gender’ Ideology Meets Feminist and LGBTIQ+ Discourses (2024) which we, the coordinators of the panel, co-edited. The aim is not to depict anti-gender politics as the constitutive ‘other’ of issues such as women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights, gender equality, sex education, and gender studies at large, but to focus on the blurring boundaries between these supposedly irreconcilable political camps. Where, when, and why do anti-gender claims resonate or even ally with certain strands in feminist and LGBTIQ+ politics? And, especially, how are these resonances (or what we call blurring boundaries) being reconfigured in our continuously changing political landscape? By analysing these resonances and blurring boundaries, our goal is not to widen the gap between feminism and queerness, but to make the case for the need for broader alliances and dialogues in order to more effectively counter today’s crusades on women’s and LGBTIQ+ constituencies. The questions addressed are the following: - What are the factors, in feminist and queer discourses and politics, which open the doors for alignment, cooptation, appropriation, and/or instrumentalization by anti-feminist and anti-LGBTIQ+ constituencies? - How do feminist and queer groups, which entertain complex relations between them, react to being attacked as a unitary entity? - Can there be a common ground to form alliances and joint strategies in response to anti-gender threats?

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