Why do authoritarians consistently make gender a central target? 

And what does it mean that a movement once dismissed as fringe has become governing policy? This talk looks into the phenomenon of anti-gender movements as both an ideological project to uphold cisheteropatriarchy and as a political strategy deployed by authoritarians seeking to capture and consolidate power. After grounding the discussion in the historical trajectory, transnational scope and conceptual landscape of anti-gender politics, we will take stock of the movement's current hold in the United States, where it has moved well beyond advocacy into governance.

Through an analysis of the Heritage Foundation's recently published Saving America report, we will look ahead to what anti-gender movement leaders have planned for the United States and ask how we can counter their strategic use of state power to roll back decades of feminist and LGBTQ+ legal gains.