This article examines the development of campaigns against “gender ideology” in Europe, leading to the emergence of a specific family of mobilizations that we call anti-gender campaigns. These campaigns, started in the mid-1990s as a Catholic project in reaction to the results of the UN conferences of Cairo and Bejing, but developed significantly in several European countries after crucial encounters with right-wing populism. While recognizing the importance of these crossovers, we contend the interpretation that mobilizations against “gender ideology” and right-wing populism are the two faces of the same coin, and we plead for a more complex understanding of the ways in which distinct—and sometimes competing—projects can converge in specific settings. We argue that research on the “Global Right Wing” should therefore disentangle the various components of this phenomenon, and locate them in concrete settings. We show that this research strategy allows us to better grasp the specificities of each project and the ways in which they interact. Opening our eyes on crucial developments in contemporary Europe, this strategy also prevents researchers from falling into the trap of a global and unqualified backlash against everything achieved in terms of gender and sexuality in the last decades.

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The article deals with the comparison of the characteristics, experiences, and perceptions of everyday life of gays and lesbians living in rural and urban areas of Slovenia. We focus on the following thematic aspects: (1) coming out; (2) intimate partnerships; (3) the access and the use of gay infrastructure; and (4) violence against gays and lesbians. The article also addresses and discusses the urban/rural divide as a Western construct that might not be completely applicable to other social and cultural contexts. Taking Slovenia as an example, this article questions the self-evidence of rural/urban divide as an analytical concept. On the basis of our research, we conclude that this concept requires continuous revisions and reinterpretations in a concrete social and cultural context(s). The characteristics of gay and lesbian everyday life either in rural or in urban context in Slovenia lead to the conclusion that even within a specific social and cultural context, the concept of urban/rural divide should be used carefully, taking into account complexities of everyday lives and various factors that influence them.

This article builds on data collected in research on the everyday lives of gay men and lesbians in Slovenia, focusing on the families of origin and family relations. It pays special attention to the process of coming out and its consequences for further relationships among family members. It concentrates on the process of negotiating new family relations after coming out. The authors introduce the concepts of "transparent closet" and "family closet" to describe a situation in which family members are informed about a child's homosexuality but refuse to accept the consequences of their child's coming out. All of this holds important consequences for gay men and lesbians and their family members.

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Abstract

Mass protests across Europe against marriage equality, reproductive rights, gender mainstreaming and sexual education have centralised in the past few years around so-called “gender theory”. This theory is explained as a new threat to the “traditional family” and “natural masculinity and femininity”, as it allegedly aims at cultural revolution: a post-binary gender world. Many of these debates (and concrete actions) are targeted at schools and the educational process. It is believed that “gender theory” is already being taught in schools, which will have detrimental consequences for pupils. Agents of the anti-gender movement claim that children are being sexualised and brainwashed by “gender theory”.Taking this debate as the starting point, we first examine the roots of the term “gender theory” and point to its nature as an “empty signifier”. We then analyse the types of anti-gender actions across Europe that interfere with the educational process in public schools. Finally, we consider the role of parents and their right to intervene (or not) in the educational process. On the basis of the existing rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, we argue that the provision that parents are entitled to educate their children in accordance with their religious and moral beliefs does not mean that teachers in schools should avoid issues that might “morally distress” pupils or their parents, as long as schools avoid indoctrination, and providing the topics (like any other topics) are conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner.

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