The Illiberal Alphabet

‘Anti-gender’ actors transform questions of rights into questions of security and survival. By redefining democratic participation and reframing human-rights commitments as threats to sovereignty, they sound an alarm for all democratic citizens. This paper examines the rise and consequences of ‘anti-gender’ mobilizations across Europe, exploring how opposition to gender equality, reproductive rights, and LGBTQI visibility functions as a broader strategy to challenge liberal democracy. Such mobilizations extend far beyond the immediate goals of a particular protest, campaign, or policy and have consequences beyond the groups they first appear to contest. What begins as opposition to reproductive rights or LGBTQI visibility quickly becomes a vehicle to target NGOs, academics, media, and courts as illegitimate, either as imposing foreign norms or as ‘foreign agents’. ‘Anti-gender’ actors are able to justify broader attacks by linking multiple issues under a single narrative. Thus, the fusion of policy areas should be seen not just as a characteristic but as a political instrument. Through it, rights claims are reframed as threats to sovereignty, morality, and democratic participation. The radical right, but also some mainstream actors, share a narrative portfolio of threats with anti-gender actors, which expands and adapts based on pursued goals. Using comparative case studies from Europe, the article looks at the variation in how anti-gender mobilizations translate into outcomes. It distinguishes between discursive activation, rollback of existing rights, and pre-emptive restriction, where discourse and institutional pressure are disproportionate to the rights recognized domestically and are used to prevent future expansions of equality or inclusion.