Research on anti-gender mobilizations demonstrates that these mobilizations are not only contests over political power but, crucially, struggles over epistemic power, authority and the politics of knowledge. Anti-gender actors seek to delegitimize academic fields that—most notably gender and sexuality studies, itself precariously situated within the field of academia—by positioning themselves as guardians of ‘real science’, this being the one aligned with and conforming to their vision of social order. This struggle over who defines and produces legitimate knowledge is central to their broader project of reshaping public discourse, denouncing equality politics and influencing, among others, education, family, and health policies.
This paper examines the Slovenian manual Za otroke gre (Children Are At Stake), authored by a leading figure in the Slovenian anti-gender movement. Presented as a guide for parents on protecting children from so-called “gender ideology” and LGBT+ content in schools, the manual exemplifies how anti-gender actors mobilize the politics of knowledge. Although the manual draws heavily on scientific sources and terminology, it does so in misleading and contradictory ways – through cherry-picked references, decontextualised findings, and outright misrepresentations.
By invoking scientific authority and relying on ‘scientific hagiography’ of disinterestedness, the manual frames its anti-gender messages as rational, evidence-based, empirically confirmed, and thus deserving the status of official truth. By appropriating signs of scientificity, anti-gender actors attempt to authorize and legitimize their narratives by obscuring their ideological foundations while also amplifying long-standing tensions and struggles between critical scholarship, engaged and interested in revealing structures and relations of domination, and predominant positivistic expectations and interpretations of science. The case study thus contributes to scholarship on the politics of knowledge by showing how anti-gender movements seek to delegitimize critical scholarship by (mis)using the authority of ‘real science’ against it, while simultaneously presenting themselves – and their claims – as bearing the marks of objectivity and neutrality, as being disinterested arbiters of truth, standing above the fray of political contestation.
