Gender-based transnational repression and the Iranian diaspora

This paper advances theoretical understandings of transnational repression by examining its gendered dimensions through 19 semi-structured interviews with Iranian women activists across Europe and North America. While scholarship has documented how authoritarian regimes target dissidents abroad, the intersections between transnational repression and gender remain undertheorized. Drawing on interviews with activists challenging gender apartheid in Iran, we make two key contributions. First, we demonstrate how transnational repression and anti-gender movements function synergistically, each reinforcing and amplifying the other’s effects. Second, we identify how “blurred boundaries” between repressive actors function as a control mechanism, as uncertainty about threat sources creates pervasive insecurity that spans online and offline worlds. Further, we contribute to the conceptualization of the “configurations of actors” that enact transnational repression – comprising regimes, diaspora opponents, anti-gender movements, and host countries – that collectively compound women’s vulnerability beyond additive effects. Through an intersectional analysis foregrounding minoritized women’s voices, we demonstrate how multiple systems of oppression converge to create a transnational ecosystem hostile to women’s activism and political participation, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of how authoritarianism operates across borders.