Alyosxa Tudor
This article considers the role that so-called gender-critical feminist mobilizations play transnationally, not only in amplifying global anti-gender movements but in fueling broader left and liberal complicity in growing fascism. While anti-gender mobilizations most often act in the name of conservative, right-wing, or fascist politics, “gender-critical” articulations are more politically ambiguous. This is particularly apparent when considering anti-trans/gender-critical arguments within feminism, where left and right arguments coalesce around claims to protect women and children from danger. While asking broader questions on leftist/liberal complicity in rising fascism, I caution against blanketly understanding all gender-criticals as fascists. Rather, I am interested in what gender-critical thought, especially on the left, does for fascism. I analyze transnational sites of this ambiguity and argue that gender-critical left positions offer a key case study that helps us theorize the role of the left and of liberalism in right-wing times more generally. A “right-wing times” framework is useful because it redirects attention to the discursive boundaries of the debate rather than the positionality of the speakers involved. In both left/liberal and right-wing iterations, anti-gender and anti-trans politics frequently overlap with anti-immigration and anti-Palestine rhetoric and with attacks on fields of knowledge like critical race theory and intersectionality. Analyzing these discourses together, as I suggest, will not only generate more precise tools to address the current global rise of fascism but also reveal the necessity for explicitly transnational epistemologies and organizing strategies in response.