Transnational Anti-Gender Politics

In recent years, attacks on the rise of ‘gender ideology’ and ‘genderism’ as a political force, on gender studies as an academic field, and on feminist, queer and trans individuals seen to be their embodied representatives, have grown in scope and intensity. This edited volume understands such attacks as a global force in need of urgent analytical and political attention. Drawing on contributions from and about a varied range of geographical locations including Argentina, Chile, China, Germany, the Persian Gulf, Hungary, India, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, the UK and the US, this book explores how anti-gender mobilisations work as a transnational formation shaped by the legacies of colonialism, racial capitalism, and resurgent nationalisms and how these can be resisted. By transnationalising our inquiries into the epistemic, affective and political nature of the anti-gender phenomenon, this volume troubles the ‘origin stories’ we tell about where anti-genderpolitics come from, and helps to better locate the various sources, actors, and networks behind these attacks, contesting the notion that anti-gender politics derive solely from right-wing nationalist or conservative religious actors, to show how they also derive from more centrist, liberal, leftist and even presumably feminist positions. The book thus invites us to sharpen and rethink the conceptual vocabularies and strategies we use to understand and resist anti-gender attacks, opening up space for envisioning new political imaginaries and transnational feminist solidarities.

“This is exactly the kind of volume that we need. It gives us the necessary conceptual armory to understand contemporary and highly resurgent anti-gender ideologies. It establishes how anti-gender politics are entangled with rising authoritarianism, global inequalities and neo-conservatisms, across the Global North and South. By bringing together diverse locations and voices, the volume provides a new way of thinking through the complexities and implications of a new transnational landscape of anti-gender politics, as well as the grounds for forging new feminist and queer solidarities.” (Srila Roy, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand)

“This volume provides a remarkable contribution to scholarship on anti-gender politics. It reshuffles the cartographies of its origins and maps the variety of assemblages propelling it while tracing its nefarious effects across geographies. As importantly, it identifies distinctions between anti-genderism as ideological framing and its manifestations as both political agitation and statecraft. It is definitely a must-read.” (Sonia Corrêa, Sexuality Policy Watch)

“Transnational Anti-Gender Politics is a crucial theoretical and political intervention into the anti-gender debates. The scholarly contributions expose how anti-gender mobilisations across the globe manifest in articulations of nationalism, right wing populism, racism, homophobia, and normative understandings of the family. This insightful and thoughtful collection of essays from a range of contexts speaks to the transnational significance of these concerns and is a timely and vital intervention.” (Ratna Kapur, Queen Mary University of London)

“This is a very timely volume that undertakes wide-ranging perspectives on contemporaneous practices of anti-gender politics. Beyond reinforcing the very real dangers of transnational anti-gender experiences, what the contributors have also managed to do is challenge the processes and practices of knowledge production that pigeonhole this phenomenon within certain regions or sites of politics. This edited collection is a timely and important feminist addition to ongoing debates about reactionary politics within and without the academy.” (Toni Haastrup, University of Manchester, United Kingdom)

Aiko Holvikivi is Assistant Professor of Gender, Peace and Security at the LSE Department of Gender Studies, UK. Her research is interested in transnational movements of knowledges and of people, and how these are produced by and productive of gendered and racialised (in)security. Her book monograph Fixing Gender: The Paradoxical Politics of Training Peacekeepers (forthcoming, Oxford University Press) examines what work the term gender comes to do in the context of international peacekee**. Her published work appears in journals including Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, European Journal of Politics and Gender, and International Peacekee**.

 Billy Holzberg is Assistant Professor (lecturer) in Social Justice at the Centre for Public Policy Research at King’s College London, UK. His research focuses on the affective and sexual politics of intensified nationalisms and border regimes in Europe and has been published in journals like Body and Society, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Feminist Media Studies and Sociology. His first monograph Affective Bordering: The Emotional Politics of Race, Migration and Deservingness published with Manchester University Press conceptualises national border making as an affective practice cementing racialised and gendered hierarchies.

 Tomás Ojeda is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Brighton’s Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender (2022-2023), and Visiting Fellow at the LSE Department of Gender Studies, UK. His research interests lie in the intersection of queer theory, psychosocial studies, anti-gender politics and LGBTI+ mental health, with a special focus on depathologising practices, activist and academic responses to current attacks on gender affirming care. He is an editor of Engenderings, the LSE Gender blog.