Political Parties Responding to Anti-Gender Mobilisation: Mapping Strategies in Belgium and Spain

This research examines how anti-gender mobilisations and their opposition to gender equality shape political parties. Opposition to gender equality defined here as any direct or indirect opposition to LGBTQIA+ rights, sexual and reproductive rights, and sexuality education constitutes the antagonistic core of anti-gender actors (Kuhar and Paternotte 2018; Graff and Korolczuk 2021). Such opposition does not spare party systems; it permeates political processes from agenda-setting to the implementation of public policies. These oppositions, predominantly promoted by far-right parties within the political spectrum, challenge claims and representations related to LGBTQIA+ rights and seek to contest their inclusion on the political agenda. In this context, multiple forms of influence and reaction can be observed within political parties. On the one hand, the literature has highlighted that, in a context of democratic erosion and the growing normalisation of far-right ideas, convergences may emerge between far-right parties and other political actors around opposition to gender equality (Brown et al. 2025; Volk 2025; Sauer 2025; Biesemans and Gustin 2026). On the other hand, resistance also develops, both through extra-parliamentary feminist actors (Smrdelj and Kuhar 2025; Lavizzari et al. 2025) and within parliamentary arenas (Lombardo et al. 2025; Lombardo and Chaqués-Bonafont 2025). Methodologically, this research employs a process tracing combining interviews with party elites, critical actors and academics across two relevant cases for this inquiry; Belgium and Spain. The aim of this research is therefore to map the range of party responses to anti-gender mobilisations by identifying the diversity of strategies at play and analysing the intra-party implications of the diffusion of delegitimising discourses towards LGBTQIA+ rights within party systems.