- Maria Brock, Södertörn University: ‘Think of the children!’ Child safety as a dog whistle of transnational anti-gender politics
- Julian Honkasalo, University of Helsinki: Free speech and dog-whistles: Anti-gender campaigning and mobilization in Finland
- Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen, University of Stavanger: ‘Anti-gender’ disinformation campaigns and their violent potentials: The case of Norway’s LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy Ban (2023)
Panel abstract
In recent years, scholarly interest in the radical right, populism and violent extremism’s anti-gender and anti-LGBTQI+ core has surged internationally. The idea that ‘gender’ and sexual diversity - such as trans(gender) visibility, Pride festivals, and academic gender studies - pose societal, moral, and political threats is applied in order to restrict or deny access to equal rights (Kováts 2018). This panel aims to address this gap by documenting the intricate anti-gender landscape encompassing ideological belief systems, digital communication technologies, political instrumentalization, and radicalization within Nordic society and politics, and contextualizes it transnationally. The three presentations delve into timely issues and debates, including threats against organizers and performers of Drag Queen Story Hours in Sweden, political discourses surrounding the ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ individuals in Norway, and anti-gender rhetoric passing as ‘free speech’ on social media in Finland. As the presenters demonstrate, these examples are intrinsically connected to transnational developments and movements and must be carefully analyzed as such. Despite the longstanding global recognition of Nordic societies as beacons of social democratic egalitarianism, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and overall welfare, this panel underscores the urgency of acknowledging and addressing the escalating threats to democratic values and human rights posed by these ideologies.
‘Think of the children!’ Child safety as a dog whistle of transnational anti-gender politics
Maria Brock, Södertörn University
Threats against organisers and performers of Drag Queen Story Hours have become a common phenomenon in Sweden as of recent. Pride marches have similarly attracted hostile critiques akin to moral panics. Such developments are not confined to Scandinavia alone: backlash against similar events has taken place in Germany, whereas in the US, a wholesale ban on drag was discussed in several states. Common to this transnational trend is their spearheading by local right-wing politicians, who motivate their involvement as being concerned with children’s safety – here meaning protection from ‘premature sexualisation’, or from becoming vulnerable to ‘grooming‘ by paedophiles.
When elected politicians allude to ‘children’s safety’, the figure of the child becomes a conduit through which homophobic and transphobic sentiments are (re)introduced to the political mainstream. The use of such dog whistles becomes particularly useful as it connects a (self)perception of liberal values to a more coordinated, transnational shift to the right. This paper will examine the history and political utility of child vulnerability as one denoting a child that is presumed heterosexual, cisgender and white. It will demonstrate how this trope is now a central part of transnational anti-gender politics, as well as a means to enter mainstream politics.
Free speech and dog-whistles: Anti-gender campaigning and mobilization in Finland
Julian Honkasalo, University of Helsinki
This paper aims to conceptualize anti-gender social and political influencing as a symptom of a broader, contemporary crisis of liberal democracy and its core pillar of freedom of speech. I incorporate approaches and methods from gender studies, political theory, legal scholarship and performance studies in order to produce a novel theoretical framework for analyzing and comprehending the conflictual and controversial conceptions of free speech underlying anti-gender organizing and campaigning. More specifically, I aim to provide an answer to the questions of how and why argumentative strategies and speech control techniques (such as dog-whistles and false arguments) targeting precisely the concept of “gender” have become central to right-wing populist as well as extremist organizing and campaigning?
Although there is by now a rising amount of scholarship as well as EU funded policy recommendation studies on anti-gender mobilizing, there is very little research on the complex dynamics of social media anti-gender influencing and the ways in which this type of anti-genderism utilizes constitutionally protected free speech on online platforms. The research material of the paper consists of theoretical literature, North American alternative social media news broadcasts, as well as Finnish, populist and far-right campaign material.
‘Anti-Gender’ Disinformation Campaigns and their Violent Potentials: The Case of Norway’s LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy Ban (2023)
Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen, University of Stavanger
This paper considers the Norwegian Parliament’s decision to ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ individuals in December 2023. The vote concluded a lengthy process of political hearings amidst recent years’ mainstreaming of anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation campaigns in Norway’s public and media sphere, which as I have argued elsewhere, has contributed towards creating a chilling climate for LGBTQ+ rights and well-being as well as general democratic values (Engebretsen 2022).
The present analysis delves into the ways in which localised anti-gender discourses on conversion therapy in Norway that centrally appropriate pseudoscientific and ‘alt-facts’ talking points, intersect with transnational movements opposing gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and anti-discrimination and -violence policies. I contend that grasping these strategic linkages and their effects is crucial for comprehending and meaningfully addressing broader socio-political challenges, both locally and within geopolitical contexts characterized by democratic challenges, reactionary populist surges, environmental crises, and overall political turbulence.