Religion meets anti-feminism. Transnational anti-gender actors and national answers

Anti-feminist actors with different political backgrounds are well networked inter- and transnationally. This is part of their success. It is well-known that their struggle against their specific interpretation of “gender” is focused on sexual and gender diversity as well as reproductive rights, and on policies against violence against women. Their aim is to re-establish what they see as a “natural order”, i.e., a heteronormative and patriarchal gender order that declares the gender binary a biological given and women’s subordination a necessity. Our paper first reconstructs the discourse and strategies of “Agenda Europe”, a Christian conservative network co-founded by a member of the Austrian conservative party, as well as exemplary activities of the professional Christian lobby-organisations among its members (e.g., ADF International, which has its headquarter in Austria). The second part of the paper will analyse how national and international actors contest the attacks on gender and sexual diversity, reproductive rights and measures against violence against women on the national level in Austria, where feminist NGOs and some political parties e.g., not only want to preserve, but further liberalize abortion laws. How do feminist NGOs, party feminists and femocrats but also feminists in the Catholic Church use national and international arenas to counter anti-feminist attacks on women’s and gender rights? What are the strategic advantages – i.e., financial resources – of transnational religious actors? Where do we find ruptures between anti-feminist religious NGOs and established churches?