Anti-gender mobilization and transgender rights: unpacking recent evolutions in Belgium

Anti-gender mobilizations are widely studied in Europe, both comparatively and as country cases, leading to a valuable body of literature to analyse the phenomenon. However, Belgium as a country case is often overlooked: it is unclear who engages in anti-gender mobilizations and what topics they address. Previous research on the Belgian case indicates a focus on abortion and euthanasia, and LGBT+ rights and identities. The actors identified as mobilizing on these topics are right wing political parties and -politicians or the Catholic Church. Most research to anti-gender mobilizations in Belgium is older than six years or does not identify these mobilizations as anti-gender. In this paper I investigate more recent anti-gender mobilizations in Belgium, arguing that they are more overt and now focus on transgender issues. The purpose of this study is to map the Belgian field of current anti-gender mobilization to shed its evolution over the course of the last decade. Identifying relevant topics can help to understand how anti-gender mobilizations operate in this country and who engages with them. In order to find these actors, I employed different strategies. First, a literature review was conducted, including research on 1) resistance against LGBT+ rights; 2) opposition to abortion and other sexual and reproductive rights; 3) resistance against euthanasia; 4) resistance to feminism, gender, and gender studies. Second, regular Google searches were performed to find influential organisations and individuals writing on gender, transgender, woke, LGBT+ (and variations on the acronym), and feminism. Third, a snowball method helped me identify more actors. To analyse this data, the actors were divided into the following categories: political actors, religious and philosophy of life actors, academics, international organisations with influence in Belgium, anti-transgender organizations, and others not fitting into these categories. The results are presented in a table where actors are classified according to the categories listed above and the topics they address. Contrary to what earlier research has argued (Bracke et al., 2017), anti-gender mobilizations do not operate covertly anymore. I show in this paper that the mobilizations have evolved in two ways. On the one hand, abortion is no longer the central contention of anti-gender activism, although it still matters greatly. Contemporary opposition is oriented towards transgender rights and -identities. Transgender rights have been contested from different perspectives: detransition organizations, Catholic groups, political actors, and humanist organizations. These contestations take different forms and are not always straightforward. On the other hand, mobilizations are now less covert. News outlets and publishing houses offer a platform to those contesting gender and transgender rights. To present these results, this paper consists of four sections. The first section gives an overview of existing literature on European anti-gender mobilizations. Subsequently, literature on the phenomenon in Belgium is addressed, also including research not directly addressing anti-gender. In the third section, I present the identified actors and the topics they address. The conclusion wraps up the main findings and suggests venues for further research and practices of feminist resistance.