Agnieszka Graff is an associate professor at the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw. She has authored several books of feminist essays in Polish (among them: Świat bez kobiet, 2001, and Matka feministka, 2014). Her articles on gender in Polish and US culture have appeared in journals such as Public Culture, Feminist Studies, Signs, East European Politics and Societies, and Journal of Modern European History. Her most recent book, co-authored by Elżbieta Korolczuk, is Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment (Routledge, 2022, open access).
Anti-gender politics: traditionalism, illiberalism, or neo-fascism?
During the last decade, gender-related rights – abortion, sex education, marriage equality, trans rights, etc. – have been under attack from what appears to be an increasingly influential and coherent global anti-gender movement. What these campaigns have in common is the demonization of the concept of “gender,” which is linked to rampant individualism, a moral and spiritual crisis, and various social ills. “Gender” is said to be a threat to the family, especially to children. While anti-genderism’s origins are religious and much of its rhetoric remains moralistic, the role of religion in anti-gender politics is instrumental – attacks on “gender ideology” have become the right way to attack liberal democracy. Offering recent examples from Spain, Hungary, and Poland, this lecture looks at the anti-gender worldview, the core themes of the campaigns, and how they serve anti-democratic forces. It suggests historical and discursive links between anti-gender rhetoric and antisemitism. I propose the concept of opportunistic synergy to capture the ideological affinity and political collaboration between ultraconservative civil society actors and populist right-wing politicians. Finally, I consider whether “fascism” may be an appropriate concept through which to approach this trend
Karina Bárcenas Barajas PhD in Social Sciences with Specialization in Social Anthropology from the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology. She is a senior researcher at the Social Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is the author of the book Under the Same Sky: The churches for sexual and gender diversity in a conservative religious field [Bajo un mismo cielo. Las iglesias para la diversidad sexual y de género en un campo religioso conservador], as well as 19 scientific articles and 11 chapters in books. She has also been editor and co-editor of five books, including Anti-gender Movements in Latin America: Cartographies of Neoconservatism. [Movimientos antigénero en América Latina: cartografías del neoconservadurismo].
Anti-gender movements in Latin America: a genealogy between neoconservatism and post-fascism
Although the term “gender ideology” was originated in the mid-1990s, its popularization and strength in articulating the anti-gender movements that we now know in Latin America and other regions of the world have involved different time coordinates.
If is considered that the formation of a social movement requires groups and individuals articulated around a common cause through different forms of collective action, this lecture starts from the problematization of a distinctive feature that in the last decade has marked the trajectory of anti-gender movements in Latin American countries: evangelical politicization. Subsequently, a genealogy of these movements is drawn based on their relationships between neoliberalism and neoconservatism; but also of post-facism, a distinctive feature in some contexts.
This analytical perspective allows us to position them as an active minority, acting through alliances and proven strategies: in the streets, in socio-digital networks and in legislative spaces, with the purpose of achieving recognition of a set of rights and freedoms such as right of parents to educate their children and religious freedom.
The analysis reveals a symbolic domain through the configuration of political alliances, moral panics, and disinformation strategies, all in favor of a project of governmentality by the goals of neoliberalism, which is articulated in discursive axes related to freedom, democracy, sovereignty, and citizenship.
Nicole Erin Morse is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Their research has been published in Feminist Media Studies, Porn Studies, Jump Cut, Discourse, and elsewhere, and their book Selfie Aesthetics: Seeing Trans Feminist Futures in Self-Representational Art was published by Duke University in 2022. They are a Jewish Voice for Peace member, which has landed them on Turning Point USA’s Professor Watchlist.
Nicole Erin Morse
Associate Professor of Multimedia Studies
Director of the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Selfie Aesthetics available from Duke University Press
Zoom
Do you have a plan to vote? (https://www.vote.org/state/florida/) (pronouns: they/them/theirs) – what’s this?
Desantis vs Gender Studies: Fascism in the Freest State in the Nation
“Gender ideology” is central to right wing attacks on higher education in Florida, from legislation passed in 2022 and 2023 that censors educators and students to the hostile takeover of famously queer-friendly New College. These efforts are overtly informed by fascist movements in Brazil, Hungary, and elsewhere. They are deeply intertwined with evangelical Christianity. Finally, they are presented through propaganda that claims they ensure “freedom” while they restrict, exclude, silence, limit, constrain, blacklist, and persecute those who are disfavored by evangelical Christian leaders. All of this has been headline news in the United States, but what is perhaps less recognized is that Desantis’ attacks on academic freedom began almost immediately after his election, with a 2019 law that barred criticism of the State of Israel. By connecting Christian Zionism to the attacks on gender studies, I argue that Desantis’ administration reveals the masculinist, militaristic, apocalyptic impulse behind fascist attacks on gender studies in the United States. It also sheds new light on his attacks on “critical theory” and other ideas associated with Jewish scholars from the Frankfurt School. Finally, it exposes the gendered contradictions at the heart of fascist invocations of “freedom,” as shown through a case study of a gender studies program that has become imperilled by the discipline’s commitment to decoloniality and Palestinian solidarity.
Dra. Siobhan F. Guerrero Mc Manus studied Biology at the School of Science at UNAM and holds a Master’s and Ph.D. in Philosophy of Science, both from UNAM as well. Currently, she is a Full-time Researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities (CEIICH-UNAM). Her areas of expertise encompass (i) gender studies and science, (ii) philosophy of biology, (iii) transfeminism, and (iv) philosophy of subjectivity. She is a Level II member of the National System of Researchers of Mexico. In 2018, she was honored with the “Distinction National University for Young Academics” award, and in 2020 with the “Research Award” in the humanities field, granted by the Mexican Academy of Sciences.
Discursive and political convergences between the New Right and Trans-exclusionary Feminism
Focuses on the discursive convergences between the new right and trans-exclusionary feminism. I will primarily address issues related to the most notable elements of both discursive formations. Additionally, I will analyze some elements in the social context that have facilitated the widespread dissemination of certain transphobic tropes. Finally, I will briefly touch upon the topic of the funding of hate movements. My presentation is intended to complement Julianna’s discussion on the key actors within the critical gender movement.
Julianna Neuhouser, journalist
The Strange Marriage of Right-Wing Anti-Gender Ideology Activists and Trans-exclusionary Feminists
In this talk, Ms. Neuhouser traces the strange overlap of trans-exclusionary feminists and right-wing anti-gender ideology activists. In particular, Ms. Neuhouser explains how some “radical feminists” felt increasingly left out of contemporary feminist and LGBTQ movements and how the far-right utilized their concerns to justify their own attack on trans rights.