Anti‑Gender Movements: A Global Threat to Human Rights and Civil Society
Anti‑gender movements have rapidly gained visibility and influence across the world. What began as loosely coordinated opposition to “gender ideology” has evolved into a well‑funded and politically connected force shaping laws, public discourse, and international policy. In this blog we explore how anti-gender movements affect our everyday lives and realisation of human rights. And more importantly what we can and should do to counter them.
What is meant by anti-gender movements?
Anti-gender movements are characterised by their opposition to ‘gender’ and ‘gender ideology’. ‘Gender ideology’, a term used by the Vatican in opposition to gender equality has become an empty signifier and catch all for all that these mobilisers consider plaguing the current world. The movements oppose the concept of gender, the plurality of genders, and what they frame as the erosion of traditional family values. They also mobilise against comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), sex work, and abortion.
Increasingly, anti-gender rhetoric and anti-gender movements have moved into the mainstream affecting laws, financing, and international policy amongst other areas.
But not all these actors share the same goals and ideas. For instance, branches of feminists opposed to sex work and trans inclusionary practices have also been considered as anti-gender actors due to their proximity at times in fighting ‘gender ideology’ and their so-called ‘return to sex-based systems’ even though they may not be against same sex relations or for the re-instatement of other conservative ‘traditional values’. Some of these anti-gender actors are also linked to right‑wing and far‑right populist politics, particularly in Europe and the United States.
Anti-gender movements part of larger attack on civil society and human rights
In Outright’s mapping of elections in 2024, in approximately 26 countries, political parties made references either to gender ideology, LGBT or gender propaganda, and wokeism as part of references against LGBTIQ people. Notably this mobilisation is not only against LGBTIQ people but has also been against expansion of prevention of women’s rights and efforts to end violence against women such as concerted efforts against the Maputo Protocol in the African context and the Istanbul Convention in the European context. One tactic used in mobilising against comprehensive sexuality education is to claim it as so-called indoctrination of children which has resulted in increased ‘LGBT propaganda’ laws in schools.
This illustrates but one use of protection of children and young people in anti-gender mobilisation. In the same research by Outright, anti-gender mobilisations in the context of elections in Croatia have magnified the experience of discrimination for LGBTIQ youth in schools. Increasingly, young people’s autonomy to self-determine their gender and sexualities has become curtailed. It is also no surprise that there are more coordinated efforts through the ‘manosphere’ to influence young people and especially young men away from a gender equal world.
Anti-gender movements are not detached from our everyday lives. They directly affect not only women, LGBTIQ people or those otherwise involved in a gendered system but are also largely connected to other systems of oppression. For instance, anti-gender politics use of sovereignty is but an extension of the ideas of security and protection of national identity that have been used against migrants for ages. An example with direct impact has been the misreporting of increases in fraudulent asylum applications by LGBTIQ people. This has resulted in ineffective processing of asylum claims based on SOGIESC.
Anti-gender movements such as anti-trans mobilisation in the United States is funded by fossil fuel billionaires; highlighting the need for collaboration between trans rights activists and climate change activists/movements. Anti-gender movements, and particularly far right actors in them, have also entrenched anti-gender politics as part of a wider attack against civil society and human rights in general.
Anti-gender mobilisation is increasingly affecting organisations and academics working on gender equality in the Nordic countries also. A recent study shows that of those surveyed, 67% of organisations had been harassed in some form or other, for 50% of them it was directed towards individuals at the organisation and for 37%, harassment was targeted both towards individuals and the organisations. The harassment included legal threats, sexual harassment, targeting of family members and even death threats.
The situation has been worsening also for academics working on gender equality where 47% of them had received threats or had seen threats to a colleague, 30% of them reported threats to the organisation, and 27% reported both. While discussing LGBTIQ issues was seen by the respondents as requiring the most extra precautions, other discussions on migration, anti-racism, violence against women, gender equality in general, and engagement of men and boys have also needed extra precautions in response to the experienced opposition. The most significant impact is on well-being, with around half of respondents reporting effects on their safety and mental and physical health.
Anti-gender movements are growing and well-funded
The funding space is also facing a shift from anti-gender politics in contexts such as the United States where funding women and LGBTIQ organising has been considered wasteful. Specifically, policies such as the Global Gag Rule and recent attempts by the United States to amend the definition of gender show how funding spaces are being systematically reduced for counter resistance against the anti-gender movement.
In Nordic Countries, 44% of the respondents from the government for the study above, had experienced opposition to international cooperation to gender equality and 50% on implementation of gender equality. For 25% of them, this manifested through budget cuts, resource cuts and funding cuts, and for another 25% through requests to omit the use of certain words, topics or concepts.
This is even where the status quo has been that anti-gender movements have been more well-resourced in comparison to LGBTIQ and feminist organisations. For instance, Global Philanthropy has estimated that anti-gender movements received more than triple the resources received by LGBTIQ organisations between 2013 and 2017; where LGBTIQ organisations received an estimated 1.2 billion US Dollars and anti-gender actors received 3.7 billion US Dollars.
Anti-gender movements in the Global South
While the anti-gender movement has become more coordinated, the phenomenon is not new and has been built partially from colonial histories. Many rigid gender roles and the elevation of the nuclear, heteronormative family are rooted in colonial systems.
These ideas have long been embedded in international legal and political frameworks, shaping narrow definitions of family and gender. In many Global South countries, especially in Africa, gender equality, diverse gender identities, and women’s reproductive rights are often opposed as ‘un‑African’ or as threats to national sovereignty. This framing reflects a form of ‘post-colonial amnesia’ ignoring long histories of gender and sexual diversity in Africa and elsewhere.
Today, these narratives are increasingly translated into law and legal mobilisation against women and LGBTIQ people. Recent examples include Uganda’s Anti‑Homosexuality Act, Ghana’s Human Sexual Values Bill, and proposed changes to legislation in Kenya, alongside ongoing criminalisation in countries such as Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mali. In Africa, legal protections for women and LGBTIQ people are under threat due to the Draft African Charter on Family, Sovereignty and Values, which will restrict comprehensive sexuality education, abortion, and gender and sexual diversity by appropriating human rights language and mechanisms.
Even in countries in South Asia which have had more progressive stances on LGBTIQ people for instance in Nepal, anti-gender mobilisation has been undertaken against legal gender recognition for ‘creating confusion’ and where media have for instance accused transactivists of being ‘foreign agents’; a term often used to involve sovereignty against (wrongly) alleged Western ideas such as sexual and gender plurality.
How should we respond to anti-gender movements?
Despite the intensity of anti-gender movements, feminists and queer activists across the globe have responded through academia, continued organising, and advocacy to counter the anti-gender movement. We individually also have a role to push back against the anti-gender movement from naming and shaming anti-gender actors, to creating spaces for solidarity for those who are most affected by anti-gender politics, to supporting mobilisations by those working in different contexts to fight anti-gender movements and to shifting narratives away from gender panic to accepting plural ways of being. We also need to push back against how LGBTIQ youth and young people working on gender equality are being targeted and sidelined through anti-gender organising. In line with this year’s Helsinki Pride theme of Growing with Pride, we need to centre the experiences of LGBTIQ youth as part of the counter resistance towards the anti-gender movements.
For funders of grassroots human rights work, like KIOS, it is important to continue funding even in restricted spaces and support the work that activists are doing to counter the attacks of anti-gender movement. This also vital in building a future where everyone can be free from discrimination and hate speech.
This blog was written by John Mutiro. John is graduating with a Master’s degree in International Law and Human Rights from Åbo Akademi. John is currently working as a programme officer at KIOS.