Anti-Gender in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Yet Another Instrument of Ethnonationalist Mobilization?

Anti-gender mobilizations, understood as activities explicitly targeting an alleged ‘gender ideology’ in order to delegitimize progressive politics regarding gender and sexuality (Kuhar & Paternotte, 2017a ; Hark & Villa, 2015 , 7), have only recently emerged in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This does not mean that there had been no previous attacks on feminist and LGBT + movements and their demands. On the contrary, (political) homophobia and sexism are deeply engrained in BiH’s society. This is a result, firstly, of the heteronormative and patriarchal structure that was reinforced during the civil war between 1992 and 1995 (Popov-Momčinović & Ždralović, 2024 , 119) and, secondly, of the fact that, since the war, issues of ethnic identity and division have been prioritized over every other social issue by the ethnonationalist political elites (Mujkić, 2007 ). In this context, gender and sexuality issues have either been instrumentalized for ethnonational politics or been paid mere lip service by most of the post-war governments. These two elements have seemingly rendered the explicit anti-gender movements observed in many European countries and globally superfluous in Bosnia and Herzegovina so far (Popov-Momčinović & Ždralović, 2024 , 119).