From Doctrine to Virality: The Metamorphosis of the "Anti-Gender" Intellectual in Latin America

This work argues that the production of "anti-gender" knowledge in Latin America has undergone a fundamental transformation since the 2010s, marked by the rise of a new generation of intellectuals who have moved beyond the primarily religious framework of their predecessors. The production of knowledge opposing the gender perspective is not new to the region. In fact, some of the earliest texts that inspired the global "gender ideology" discourse emerged from Argentine Catholic writers in the mid-1990s, who were in dialogue with activists from the Global North. Authors such as Argentina's Jorge Scala and Cristina Delgado, or Colombia's Alejandro Ordoñez, established themselves early on as intellectual references for regional antifeminism. However, while their texts were primarily situated within a doctrinal struggle, the new wave of intellectuals (e.g., Laje, Márquez, Kaiser, Marinovic, Huff) operate as influencer-intellectuals. This paper analyzes their departure from the old guard along three key dimensions: 1) The adoption of an expert-influencer model, which prioritizes viral circulation and personal brand-building; 2) A pluralistic ideological foundation, which merges religious arguments with neoliberal economic doctrines and securitization rhetoric, creating an agenda with relative autonomy from strictly religious concerns; 3) The production of content as artifacts of emotional mobilization, strategically designed to generate moral panic and political antagonism, even more so than to persuade through reasoned argumentation. This shift is redefining the strategies of anti-gender mobilization in the region.