Sexonationalism: Reinventing the Nation in the Age of Neoliberalism and Anti-Gender Movements

This paper theorizes sexonationalism as a project of national regeneration linking sexual difference, heterosexual complementarity, and the family to an imaginary of moral and identity renewal. Rather than signaling a return to the past, it represents a contemporary reconfiguration of nationalism in which sexual and familial morality function as vehicles of an “authentic” modernity and civilizational restoration, framed as a response to the alleged damage caused by progressive neoliberal elites. In fact, it operates as a mutant form of neoliberal capitalism. Sexonationalism acts as a technique of identity revalorization: it enables previously disqualified positions—antifeminist, anti-gender, traditionalist, and even racist or homophobic— to present themselves as legitimate, courageous, or “counter-hegemonic.” This dynamic is observable both in official politics, particularly in countries marked by illiberal turns (e.g. United States, certain Central and Eastern European or Latin American countries) and in politics from below, through the emergence of new conservative feminisms (e.g. femelist or “feminists of complementarity” in France). Sexonationalists articulate a renewed conception of modernity and empowerment through a heteronormative project of moral renewal that proudly recenters white, Christian men and women, as complementary subjects of the nation. By exploiting the populist critiques of economic inequalities produced by globalisation, structural adjustment programs (SAPs) or transitions to capitalist economies, sexonationalism is linked to the consolidation of a nationalist neoliberalism - a compromise between the core of the neoliberal economic paradigm and the political imperatives of advancing national interests (Ban, Scheiring, and Vasile 2021). Conceptually, sexonationalism builds on the work of Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1989; 2005), Yuval-Davis (1997), who show how nationalism often constructs racialized and gendered “others” — both external (foreigners, colonized peoples) and internal (ethnic minorities, “deviant” women, gender and sexual minorities). Sexonationalism incorporates sexual democracy (Fassin 2006), homonationalism (Puar 2007; 2013; 2022) and femonationalism (Farris 2017) while expanding these concepts to account for geopolitical relations – colonialism, imperialism, globalized capitalism – that structure the core-periphery dynamics and shape contemporary nationalist reconfigurations across countries. Empirically, the paper explores this concept through the case of Romania, where gender and sexuality became highly politicized after 2015 amid the escalation of anti-gender campaigns, the rise of radical right parties which explicitly targeted gender and the mainstreaming of their ideas within traditional parties. The first radical right party to enter parliament, AUR, not only doubled its representation in its second legislature, but also spawned new formations - SOS Romania and POT – further extending the radical-right field. To demonstrate the analytical utility and mechanisms of sexonationalism, the paper draws on empirical material from two legislatures (2016-2020 and 2020-2024), including political declarations and press articles from the platform Digi24. Analysis of the first legislature shows how anti-gender and traditionalist ideas circulated beyond the radical right and were gradually mainstreamed by moderate parties such as the Liberals and the Social Democrats. Analysis of the second legislature shows how radical-right parties appropriated and reframed feminist claims, constructing a divide between the “women’s rights” they claim to defend and the sexual orientations and gender identities they oppose.