So, Now What? From Backlash to a Proactive Politics of Queer Futures

Abstract

In recent years, extensive scholarship has traced how anti-gender politics has infiltrated nearly all arenas of political life (Ayoub and Stoeckl 2024; Bosia et al. 2020; Kuhar and Paternotte 2017). Europe stands at a crucial geopolitical crossroad. The call to protect sexual and gender diversity is not only resisted by forms of political and postcolonial homophobia beyond the West (Durban 2023; Weiss and Bosia 2013). The second term of Donald Trump and the death of ultra-conservative activist Charlie Kirk are accelerating, both economically and politically, the transnational restoration of a moral conservative order (Brown 2019; Butler 2025). European leaders in e.g. Italy, Slovakia and Hungary have joined Putin’s Russia in exerting pressure to weaken, neutralize, and reverse inclusion and anti-discrimination policies across Europe. Further, the feminist and queer cause is being co-opted by forms of trans-exclusionary and homonationalist feminist and gay politics. Building on this empirical landscape, this panel examines the theoretical and political challenges facing contemporary LGBTI+ politics and movements. The proliferation of resistance strategies—through courts, parliaments, and activism—signals the exhaustion of certain political and epistemic frameworks. We start from the questions: which discursive and analytical tools for thinking and advancing queer futures have reached their limits? which vocabularies of rights, equality, and protection remain productive, and which have been neutralized or captured by conservative counter-movements? And which contradictions within the liberal model of gender equality and diversity have become untenable? Rather than remain in diagnostic mode, we call for a proactive shift toward reimagining the theoretical and political agenda of queer politics—one that confronts the entanglements of power, knowledge, and affect shaping the future of equality struggles. This panel will examine this context through a variety of contemporary practices of promotion and resistance to LGBTI+ equality: freedom of expression and alternative Pride events (Ammaturo); disinformation and security in relation to queer politics (Cruz and Strand); the challenges of EU and queer politics (Breiding); and anti-trans judicial strategies in the UK and the USA (Ramírez García). References: Ayoub, Phillip M., and Kristina Stoeckl. 2024. The Global Fight against LGBTI Rights: How Transnational Conservative Networks Target Sexual and Gender Minorities. LGBTI Politics. New York University Press. Bosia, Michael J., Sandra M. McEvoy, and Momin Rahman, eds. 2020. The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics. Oxford University Press. Brown, Wendy. 2019. In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. The Wellek Library Lectures in Critical Theory. Columbia university press. Butler, Judith. 2025. Who’s Afraid of Gender? Penguin Books. Durban, Erin L. 2023. The Sexual Politics of Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti. 1st ed. NWSA / UIP First Book Prize Ser. University of Illinois Press. Kuhar, Romain, and David Paternotte, eds. 2017. Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality. Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd. Weiss, Meredith L., and Michael J. Bosia. 2013. Global Homophobia: States, Movements, and the Politics of Oppression. University of Illinois Press.

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