Gender Activists Alarmed: New Report on the "Anti-Gender Mobilizations in

Europe" by Left-Wing Think Tank - July 31, 2015 - By Gabriele Kuby

The world-wide operating Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) is the intellectual activist
centre of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) which presently governs Germany in
a coalition with the Christian Democratic Party under Chancellor Angela Merkel.
As their publications and conferences reflect, the FES pushes for same-sex
marriage, reproductive rights, biotechnology, sexual diversity, gender equality,
and sexual education. It also publishes reports with the intention of naming and
shaming individuals, organizations, parties, and networks which work on behalf
of life and the family.
The FESs latest publication takes an international approach, describing antigender activists and actions in France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia.
Titled Gender as Symbolic Glue: The position and role of conservative and farright parties in the anti-gender mobilizations in Europe, the report was published
by something called the Foundation for European Progressive Studies with the
financial support of the European Parliament and the Budapest branch of the
FES.
The authors are alarmed over the growing resistance to gender politics seen at
the grass-roots level (e.g. La Manif pour tous movement in France and Demo fr
alle in Germany) and expressed in referendums held in several countries across
Europe. In addition, they cite the opposition of political parties at the local and
European levels, and the anti-gender declarations of Bishops Conferences.
What is seen as a dangerous development by the sexual left is really a testimony
to the success of the pro-life and pro-family movement in Europe. The authors
say:
Anti-gender movements want to claim that gender equality is an ideology, and
introduce the misleading terms gender ideology or gender theory which distort
the achievements of gender equality This phenomenon has negative
consequences for the legislation on gender equality. The Symbolic Glue report
then provides policy recommendations for the progressive side to stand up
against fundamentalist political activism.
The individual country reports on the reactionary backlash against gender
politics in France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia give a good overview
of the situation in each country and the positions of the conservative and rightwing parties. In contrast to previous publications from the Friedrich-EbertStiftung, which tried to defame and stigmatize conservative individuals as rightwing radicals, bigots, and family-fundamentalists, the Symbolic Glue report
largely refrains from such slanderous language. In fact, the authors sound worried
that conservative activists are acquiring dominance in public debates, and are
influencing party politics and legislation by:
coining the terms gender-ideology and genderism;
giving scientific evidence against gender ideology;
mobilizing at the grass-roots level through fear-managing language;

making use of authoritarian themes such as the polemic against the French
schoolbook Tous poil (All naked);
creating moral panic that allows socialist officials to be accused of
jeopardising the future of society;
re-articulating parent-power or parental involvement in promoting the
parents as actors of the restoration of authority and traditional values at school;
the gradual subordination of educational institutions to Christian conservative
worldview, carried out by local authorities in cooperation with the Catholic Church
and religion-based organisations;
utilizing hate-speech towards Gender Studies (as an academic subject) and
relying on freedom fighter rhetoric;
pointing to the EU as a cultural coloniser;
leading successful constitutional referendums for defining marriage as the union
of one man and one woman.
Symbolic Glue also analyses the deficiencies of the sexual left. It is difficult to say
whether this self-critical stance is a tactical device to arouse sympathy and
motivate people to engage in the anti-anti-gender battle, or whether it is really
dawning on the authors that anti-gender movements can have grave
consequences not only to womens and LGBT rights but to the emancipatory
promise of the Left altogether.
The sexual left, according to the authors own evaluation, seems to be missing
symbolic glue. They see:
difficulties of building an ideological response to conservatives;
lack of public campaign against the anti-gender discourse;
the inability to articulate a progressive agenda in the concrete experience of
ordinary people;
the counter-reactions of leftist parties to the anti-gender mobilisation being one
step behind those of extra-parliamentary forces.
The ultimate intention of the authors is to cure progressives of these
deficiencies. But it is good that they also let conservatives know how they want
to achieve this.
Indeed, it is difficult to convince ordinary people of the notion of gender theory,
and that the traditional identity of man and woman are restrictions on human
freedom that must be overcome by voluntarily choosing ones gender identity
according to ones feelings. Since the authors supply no definition for the concept
of gender identity, we have to refer to the Preamble of The Yogyakarta Principles,
since it is one of the rare places where a definition is given:
Gender identity [refers] to each persons deeply felt internal and individual
experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at
birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely
chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or

other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and
mannerisms.
The solution to the incompatibility of gender theory with common sense rooted
in nature is apparently to drop the concept of gender entirely. "Using the
concept of gender as a technical category in the long run can be more selfdestructive than useful while encountering this new political challenge." The
progressives intend to move away from a framework of identity politics and
reclaim the real leftist values, using the language of solidarity by creating a
counter-language, which reflects the emotional-fear language of the rightists.
Furthermore, [i]nstead of putting the emphasis on human nature or traditional
values, progressive actors have to take advantage of other aspects of common
sense: us/them distribution of power and wealth. Defining political antagonism
is a pathway to hegemony. The authors recognize that the opposition is
composed of hard to control grass-roots movements and, therefore, advise
progressive actors and left-wing parties to strongly connect to grassroots [sic]
organisations, local and individual initiatives.
Furthermore, the public is to be provided with concrete information about
gender studies and policies through academic conferences, articles and
statements from gender experts. But in addition to conferences and a public
dialogue between feminists and Catholics in order to ridicule the anti-gender
campaign, an e-learning course on gender equality, developed in Slovakia,
is recommended as best practice, targeting administration staff, students, and
the general public.
The authors of the Symbolic Glue report also sound somewhat startled to see a
paradigm change in science as we know it. They describe the science they
know as the post-modern turn of modernity where science became a moral
and normative category acknowledging the positionality of the knower. This
approach also questions the subject-object division and brings in new symbols,
new myths and redefinitions.
It is worth noting that with the exception of Andrea Pet who wrote the Epilogue,
the reports authors are all young women who belong to the millennial
generation born around 1980. Several of them are in the process of obtaining a
Ph.D., so their academic formation took place during the last ten years. This is
precisely the period during which gender studies was established as an
academic subject at the universities. (In German-speaking countries there are
more than 200 professors for gender or queer studies, nearly all of them
women.) Gender studies was and is a wide open door for female careers and a
booming market for jobs.
These young women only know a science which is subordinated to the aim of
effecting a political change in society and academics is seen as an instrument
for serving the cause of feminist and LGBT-interests. This so-called science has
completely severed the academic commitment to the search for truth which is
or was the moving force behind the unfolding of European culture.
In general, Gender as symbolic glue, which was published by a foundation with a
certain scientific claim, does not show the slightest intention of dealing with
arguments on their merit; it just wants to pillory the enemy. Twenty-three
individuals perceived as enemies of the sexual left are presented in an Index

at the end of the book. (Wasnt there an aversion to Catholic indices among
enlightened liberals?)
In the end, the report says more about the weaknesses of the gender identity
movement than about its opponents. The young authors must feel that their
intellectual house is built on sand, otherwise they wouldnt express such worried
dismay over the opposition they are facing. After all, international institutions like
the UN and the EU with their sub-agencies like the Fundamental Rights Agency
and European Institute for Gender Equality and national governments, with the
superpower U.S. leading the way, as well as global corporations like Apple,
Microsoft, and Facebook, and global NGOs like IPPF and ILGA, to name but a few,
all with billions of dollars at their disposal, are on the side of the gender identity
activists in this cultural war.
So why are these young women worried about the opposition of twenty-three
people and a few comparatively tiny organisations with extremely small budgets?
The answer is simple: Because they feel that the truth is on their side.
Gabriele Kuby is a sociologist, international speaker, and author of Die GenderRevolution Relativismus in Aktion, 2006, and Die globale sexuelle Revolution
Zerstrung der Freiheit im Namen der Freiheit, 2012. Both books have been
translated into several languages and are referred to in the Symbolic Glue report.
Die globale sexuelle Revolution will be published in the U.S. by Angelico Press in
the fall of 2015.