“You Only Babble. We Talk Science”: Knowledge Repertoires of Anti-Geder Actors in Italy

Recent investigations on challenges to democracy emphasize that examining conflicts around gender and sexuality is crucial to grasp latent mechanisms behind processes of democratic backsliding. In the context of rising anti-gender mobilizations in several European countries, since the early 2010s Italy has witnessed increased resonance of anti-gender claims and stronger collaborations between anti-gender organizations and right-wing populist parties. Not only have such collaborative efforts successfully blocked legislative changes on LGBTQIA+ rights and non-discrimination policies, but in doing so they have contributed to eroding democratic institutions and values in the country. While the institutionalization of anti-gender politics and its consequences on Italian democracy have been extensively studied, scholars still need to examine how anti-gender actors engage in knowledge production processes in their attempts to oppose gender equality, as well as the role played by their knowledge repertoires in the institutionalization of anti-gender politics. This paper addresses these concerns by combining data from 15 parliamentary debates on homolesbobitransphobia, 28 semi-structured interviews with Parliament members, and 14 organisational documents by key Italian anti-gender actors. Our qualitative content analysis shows that the knowledge repertoires of anti-gender actors encompass both the manipulation of already existing knowledge - through the instrumental use of data and statistics - and the creation of anti-gender contents disseminated through the support of right-wing populist parties. Furthermore, right-wing actors are found to build their discriminatory arguments by leaning on anti-gender knowledge and knowledge repertoires, thus indicating that knowledge produced by movement actors is diffused in institutional settings. By shedding light on how deep the circulation of anti-gender knowledge in Italian institutions is, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the role played by knowledge-production processes and practices in facilitating the institutionalization of movement actors. By doing so, it helps critically appraise the nexus between epistemic violence and democratic backsliding.