Attacks on Pride: the Far Right and Queer Hostile Mobilizations

The LGBTQ+ community and queer people more broadly have become key targets of far-right hate speech, violence, and protest mobilization worldwide. Right-wing actors often demonize queer people as threats to (cis) women and children, while far-right governments restrict transgender rights, and activists organize counterdemonstrations against queer visibility events such as pride parades and drag queen story hours. While research on antifeminism and anti-gender mobilizations has illuminated hostile discourses, less is known about the connection between queer hostility and far-right protest mobilization. Drawing on social movement studies and far-right scholarship, this paper proposes an analytical framework to study the recent rise of far-right protest mobilization against pride parades. Following Castelli Gattinara, Froio, and Pirro (2022), it identifies three key factors shaping mobilization: (1) cultural grievances, including antifeminist and queer-hostile attitudes amid expanding LGBTQ+ rights and visibility; (2) political and discursive opportunity structures, such as party constellations, legal changes, and international discourse; and (3) resources available to far-right actors, including ideology, pre-existing organizational networks, and anti-gender allies in politics and media.