The ebb and flow of gender and sexuality education policies: LGBTQIA+ organised civil society influence on policy-making and resistance to the anti-gender agenda in Brazil

This study investigates how LGBTQIA+ civil society actors with a focus on gender and sexuality education articulated their resistance to the extreme-right and conservative government of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022). To answer this question, the paper firstly unpacks strategies of influence organized civil society actors used against the anti-gender agenda. Secondly, it explores how actors navigated the complexity of organized civil society and State relationships. Through documentary analysis, participant observations, and 22 semi-structured interviews with activists and government officials at three levels of the Brazilian State, the study reveals that civil society responses involve coalition-building among diverse actors, including lawyers, teachers, researchers, and activists from intersectional and intersectoral organizations. Further, bridging, amplification and transformative framing strategies were employed by civil society organizations according to the level of governance they advocated. Valuable knowledge practices and advocacy efforts led by coalitions of civil society actors were key in driving decisive decision-making, particularly through the judiciary branch. Civil society actors resiliently responded by rejecting any collaboration with Bolsonaro’s undemocratic conservative extreme-right government, yet ‘collaborationists’ actors have also been identified. The study concludes that LGBTQIA+ civil society actors' strategies leaned more towards rejection, contestation, and coalition-building to counter the government's attacks to gender and sexuality education and the "depuration of human rights". Thus, this research sheds light on the adaptability and potency of advocacy efforts within challenging political climates and contributes to the ongoing discourse on the interplay between organized civil society actors' agency and the contextual forces shaping their advocacy opportunities.