The Normalisation of Anti-Gender Moral Panics: On Epistemic Regimes and the Erosion of Democracy in Spain

Feminist advances are increasingly under attack by anti-gender forces. This work examines the processes through which anti-gender actors in Spain drive democratic erosion, focusing on their use of knowledge production and political violence. We address three key questions: (1) What normalising mechanisms do anti-gender forces use to pre-legitimise their anti-feminist ideology? (2) What epistemic regimes emerge as a result? (3) How does the constructed "new normal" contribute to political violence and the erosion of democratic values?

Drawing on Foucault's concept of normativity and Krzyżanowski’s work on discursive normalisation, we analyse a range of textual and audiovisual data from anti-gender forces from 2021 to 2024. Our analysis also incorporates recent research on the relationship between democracy, anti-gender forces, autocracy, and processes of autocratisation. Using multi-method approach, we map the discourses of various anti-gender actors, from politicians to far-right influencers, think tanks, journalists, and trans-exclusionary organisations. We focus on the dialogic relationship between institutional politics and digital cultures, exploring how the mediatisation of ideology shapes the discursive construction of the "new normal" and resonates/interacts with the agendas of anti-gender institutional actors.

We argue that far-right anti-gender forces in Spain utilise moral panics around gender as their primary normalising mechanism. Specifically, we identify three key moral panics: (1) a (trans)gender moral panic, (2) a gender based violence moral panic, and (3) a nativist moral panic. The discursive juxtaposition of these moral panics creates an epistemic regime that targets feminist progress in digital and institutional spheres, delegitimising it while normalising political violence against marginalised groups, including racialised people, the LGBTQIA+ community, and women. Ultimately, this continuum of political violence and knowledge production erodes democratic rights and undermines principles of inclusion and equality.