An Intersectional Politics of Hope: Building Deep Coalitions in Resistance to Anti-Gender Politics

Over the past decades, the progress made by LGBTQIA+ and feminist movements has encountered obstacles posed by the growth and solidification of anti-gender mobilizations. These movements, at times successful, have contributed to a rollback and dismantling of policies and institutions supporting gender emancipation, being part of larger trends of democratic backsliding. While the expanding literature on anti-gender campaigns has allowed us to gain insights about the larger political project of those involved, we know less about resistance to anti-gender politics. Existing research tends to narrow its focus on single-issue movements or campaigns, often overlooking the multitude of actors involved and the interconnected nature of the targeted issues. When considering the diversity of actors, studies frequently operate under the assumption that specific social groups (women, LGBTQIA+, racialized people) are “natural” allies, failing to address the underlying tensions and challenges in the formation of coalitions and the processes that establish and perpetuate boundaries between actors. This research investigates the building of deep coalitions across non-dominant communities, targeted by anti-gender politics, by exploring the ways to overcome the obstacles in going towards each other and engaging in complex communication. The study poses deep coalitions at the basis of an intersectional politics of hope. Although coalition work is challenging, due to enduring separations among people, it harbors the potential to establish a relationship among the terms of the alliance and to ensure the co-existence of different groups, rather than building a collective identity based on the opposition towards the antagonist, whether institutions or actors that produce vulnerability.