Global Anti-Gender and Anti-LGBTQ+ Politics: Panel 1

Global Anti-Gender and Anti-LGBTQ+ Politics: Historical Continuities, Transnational Connections, Contested Futures

Panel 1: Historical Continuities: Reframing History, Recasting the Political

Chair: Angelina Ilieva, University of Chicago

Speakers: Lorna Bracewell, Flagler College
Agnieszka Graff, University of Warsaw
Sharmila Parmanand, London School of Economics

Discussant: Deborah Nelson, University of Chicago

Recorded October 28, 2022, 9:30AM-7:00PM

In recent years, social movements and political campaigns challenging women’s rights and LGBTQ+ equality have mobilized publics across the globe, from West Africa to Central and Eastern Europe, South Asia to North America. Even as some countries have witnessed an expansion of reproductive rights, marriage equality, and the legal recognition of transgender people, in many others these rights have been substantially weakened, diminished, or outright withdrawn. As commentators and academics have explored, “anti-gender” and “anti-LGBTQ+” movements often reach beyond national borders and draw upon shared strategic and material resources. Rather than consider such movements as independent national(ist) “backlashes,” this series of workshops seeks to explore their connections historically and geographically, as regional expressions of a well-connected and well-funded conservative coalition. And yet, these campaigns are not monolithic; while their actors may share similar goals, considerable differences can be observed in their political, cultural, and religious backgrounds.

This workshop queries the unlikely globalism of anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ+ actors, participants of movements that often criticize women’s rights and gender equality as cultural imperialism forced upon unwitting publics by global elites. What might explain the global reach of these movements today: shifts in mobilizing strategies, social media campaigns, or something else entirely? And what might account for the popular appeal of anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ+ politics in such vastly different political, social, and religious contexts?