'It’s the End of the World as we Know it' – Conceptualizing Anti-Gender Movements beyond 'Resistance against Equality'

The rise of anti-gender movements all over Europe has become a growing concern of feminist and LGBT activists and scholars. Based on the analysis of the existing theoretical explanations of this phenomenon this paper seeks to contribute to the debate with so far under-emphasized and under-theorized aspects. The paper argues that analysing the actors behind the anti-gender discourse (especially the role of the Roman Catholic Church) as well as the distortions they make to the concept of gender is insufficient to understand these movements and their popularity. Also, conceptualizing them as a mere backlash against women’s and LGBT rights may lead to overlooking the broader global political and economic processes they are embedded in. At stake is not just misunderstanding/ misrepresentationof “what gender really is”, nor political strategy of the Right aimed at delegitimizing political opponents. On the one hand, these movements reflect the current tendencies of identity politics in feminist and LGBT activism, best known from the Anglo-Saxon world, but having a growing influence in East-Central Europe. On the other hand, as previously argued by Weronika Grzebalska, Andrea Pető and myself, attacks on “gender ideology” should be seen as part of a broader political shift, characterised by the growing popularity of illiberal parties and the populist right all over Europe and beyond, and we need an approach that seeks to understand the root causes of this trend. “Gender” became a symbolic glue, providing ideological coherence to forces opposing liberal democracy. Resistance against “gender ideology” cannot be understood solely as a resistance against values of equality, but also they provide culturalist answers to the current crises of the liberal democracy and of various structural concerns, among others to the embeddedness of feminist and LGBT issues in the neoliberal order, and to the technocratic and top-down way of policy-making.