Shifting Spaces? Swedish Civil Society Organizations Between Support and Opposition

Opposition to gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights is neither surprising nor new. However, the emergence of anti-gender politics over the past decade has further reshaped the landscape for gender equality and LGBTQI+ advocates’ political participation in ways that are deeply gendered and consequential for democracy. Research has provided insight into the origins and manifestations of different forms of opposition, including anti-gender politics. It has also addressed how equality advocates resist backlash in various contexts, particularly in environments marked by significant state-led opposition and democratic backsliding. Nevertheless, little is known about how gender equality and LGBTQI+ civil society organizations experience and navigate opposition in environments that are simultaneously hostile and supportive, and characterised by contradictory (gendered) institutional logics. This paper focuses on Sweden, a country with a long history of institutional support for gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights and often portrayed as a bulwark of gender equality. Yet opposition, defunding of gender equality initiatives, and anti-gender narratives are also present in Sweden, and increasingly linked to broader dynamics of radical-right populism and the contestation of gender equality commitments and LGBTQI+ rights. Based on an original survey of all Swedish gender equality and LGBTQI+ civil society organizations (n = 270), text analysis and interviews, this paper sheds light on the agency of these organizations by examining how they perceive and resist opposition across institutional and non-institutional arenas, including digital spaces that have become central sites of political struggle. The study investigates whether organizations with different characteristics or claims experience opposition differently, how they respond, and what motivates these responses. It aims to illuminate how shifts in the global political environment shape the political participation of gender equality and LGBTQI+ organizations, and whether certain organizations are disproportionately affected. This, in turn, provides insights into the broader implications for the democratic role of civil society. Empirically, the paper contributes new knowledge on the implications of opposition in a context where a supportive policy environment coexists with growing resistance and backlash. Theoretically, it situates civil society strategies for managing opposition within broader debates on the democratic role of civil society and the role of gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights in sustaining democratic governance