The "gender ideology" myth / "gender ideology extremism"

Last updated: 2025 April 6.

The following page will address frequently asked questions about the derogatory and inaccurate term “gender ideology”, its use as an accusation and an anti-trans slur to attack transgender people, and the Trump administration’s false accusation of “gender ideology extremism” against trans people and the transgender community.

The “gender ideology” myth: a slur against trans people
Use of “gender ideology” by the first Trump administration
Understanding the anti-trans and anti-gender movement
The second Trump administration’s accusation of “gender ideology extremism”
What is extremism?
Anti-gender extremism and anti-trans extremism
What is an accusation in a mirror?
What is dangerous speech?
Antisemitism and antisemitic conspiracy theories in anti-trans and anti-gender movements

The “gender ideology” myth: a slur against trans people

From GLAAD: “Fact Sheet: Term to Avoid – ‘Gender Ideology'”:

“Gender ideology” is not a term transgender people use to describe themselves, it is an inaccurate term deployed by opponents to undermine and dehumanize transgender and nonbinary people.

“Ideology” describes a political construct and opinion that can be debated, argued about, and can change over time. By inaccurately claiming gender identity is an “ideology,” opponents of transgender people and their equality attempt to diminish the real need for legal protections to be treated equally and for social acceptance essential for trans and nonbinary people’s safety.

High profile anti-transgender social media accounts have falsely and harmfully dismissed being transgender and nonbinary as a “pseudo ideology,” “cult,” or “movement” that should therefore not be believed rather than simply accepted. “Gender ideology” is frequently used by longtime opponents of LGBTQ equality to support discriminatory anti-LGBTQ bills. Anti-LGBTQ social media accounts use the term to evade platform hate speech and content policies designed to protect LGBTQ users from harassment and discrimination.

In 2025, President Donald Trump used the term “gender ideology” in a sweeping executive order as part of a nationally coordinated effort to restrict the fundamental rights of transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming Americans.

Research shows “gender ideology” as an anti-LGBTQ trope can be traced back to Catholic conservative groups in the U.S. in the 1990s.

Transgender people and the transgender community as a whole are not a monolith and do not represent or subscribe to a single “ideology” or political party. Being transgender is just part of who they are, and their experiences vary widely and significantly.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center: “LGBTQ+ Health Care Buzzwords: What Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscientists & Activists Say”:

Gender Ideology or Transgender Ideology (noun)

A derogatory term that anti-LGBTQ+ groups use to imply that LGBTQ+ identity is not real but is instead a belief system that is imposed on others. Like the term “gay agenda,” the term is used as a talking point to demonize LGBTQ+ people. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups often employ the term to claim any kind of positive affirmation of trans young people is a nefarious method of creating or recruiting new trans kids.

From Human Rights Watch: “Breaking the Buzzword: Fighting the ‘Gender Ideology’ Myth”:

Like its buzzword brother “fake news,” “gender ideology” hasn’t taken long crossing borders into nationalist lexicons. The vacuous but dangerous term was adopted by the Holy See decades ago to refer to a supposed gay and feminist-led movement to subvert traditional families and social values, a reaction against the rights of women and expanding protections for sexual and gender minorities.

Since then, it has developed into a catch-all phrase and short-hand for various anxieties about social change—a Hydra-like global conspiracy myth that, despite being mildly ridiculous and readily exposed, has significant traction.

In recent years, “gender ideology” has been used as a secular rallying cry against same-sex marriage in France, an alliance-building initiative between nationalists and religious conservatives in Poland, a boost to anti-Muslim groups in Austria, a popularity enhancer for Costa Rican presidential hopeful Fabricio Alvarado, and a mobilizing tool against the recent peace accord in Colombia. […]

Use of “gender ideology” by the first Trump administration

From Human Rights Watch: “Breaking the Buzzword: Fighting the ‘Gender Ideology’ Myth”:

“Gender ideology” has also insinuated itself into mainstream US politics where its deployment is evident in domestic and foreign policy initiatives. In 2016, Roger Severino, then-director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation, blamed the inclusion of transgender troops on a “radical new gender ideology”; in 2017 Trump appointed him director of the Office for Civil Rights at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The recently leaked HHS memo that seeks to define gender as binary and immutable, and US attempts to remove the word “gender” from United Nations documents, stem from fears of “gender ideology.”

At its root, the practice of raising the specter of undefined “gender ideology” aims to curtail sexual and reproductive rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality by playing on people’s fear of social change and claiming a global conspiracy of great influence and scale. Where advances are made in women’s empowerment or in non-discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, those decrying “gender ideology” see dark forces at work to destroy the social order.

Some have referred to the term as “symbolic glue,” or an “empty signifier”: it simultaneously means nothing and everything, but is consistently used to attack feminism, transgender equality, the existence of intersex bodies, the elimination of sex stereotyping, family law reform, same-sex marriage, access to abortion, contraception and comprehensive sexuality education.

Understanding the anti-trans and anti-gender movement

From the Southern Poverty Law Center: “Anti-LGBTQ: Anti-Trans Ideology in Focus”:

In April 2023, the Heritage Foundation published its “Mandate for Leadership,” a 900-page handbook that lays out the implementation strategy of its presidential transition plan known as “Project 2025.” The project represents a dramatic reshaping of the federal government by recruiting and vetting conservative ideologues for positions in a hypothetical 2025 Republican presidential administration. It also represents a dramatic confirmation of the anti-science and anti-LGBTQ focus of the contributors to the plan.

Namely, on page 1 of the Mandate for Leadership, Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation claims that “children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.” By page 5, Roberts claims, “pornography” is “manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children” and argues that such manifestations be outlawed. Roberts also argues that “the people who produce and distribute [such materials] should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.” […]

Namely, there is an emerging network of research groups that purport to offer evidence challenging transgender identity and the efficacy of gender-affirming health care; an abundance of narrative manipulation groups that use various themes – including so-called parents’ rights, religious liberty and “protecting children” – to frame their rhetorical attacks on LGBTQ people (these rhetorical attacks have been translated into violent physical confrontations through other hate groups); and an established foundation of right-wing think tanks and conservative Christian legal advocacy groups that attempt to encode anti- LGBTQ ideology into law and conservative Republican orthodoxy. […]

Still, Project 2025, especially, represents an overt call to criminalize LGBTQ identity – by conflating transgender identity with “gender ideology” and labeling it all “pornography” that is subject to legal restriction. U.S.-based anti-LGBTQ hate groups have a long history of attempting to influence foreign laws to criminalize LGBTQ people, and that focus will likely reemerge domestically.

From Natacha Chetcuti-Osorovitz and Fabrice Teicher, “New Forms of Antisemitism, the Law, and the Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary France”:

These attacks on “destructive” and “antisocial” “gender ideology” find their origin in the Catholic Church’s mobilization especially during the United Nations (UN) conferences in Cairo (1994) and Beijing (1995). Indeed, this is when the UN officially began using the term and concept of gender in order to analyze inequalities between men and women. At the same time, policies regarding reproductive and sexual rights were being decided and implemented as part of a larger effort to realize full equality. The Vatican clearly opposed these developments as it feared the official recognition of homosexuality and same-sex parenting, which it still considered to be “pedophilia” (Buss and Didi 2003).

From this moment on, the Vatican devised a counterstrategy centered on the idea of “gender ideology” that fueled subsequent mobilizations. According to this discourse, gender amounts to a wide-ranging ideological project designed by feminist, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists and scholars of gender and sexuality. It also amounts to the “matrix of state forms that the Church condemns, [namely]: contraception, abortion, civil union, “homosexual marriage,” sexual education, “gender mainstreaming” and fight against gender-based violence, etc.” (Paternotte, van der Dussen, and Piette 2015, 11). This ideological framework allowed the paradoxical alliance between political projects that seemed at first antithetical. Relying on their belief in conspiracy, these actors claimed that the assault upon gender difference and sexual complementarity carried within it a revolutionary anthropological project that would end humanity through the inversion or dissolution of sexual and gender difference (Peeters 2013).

The Catholic Church and these social media activists have been unrelenting in denouncing a threat that they argue has remained invisible yet constantly at work in contemporary politics and that, they insist, may be even more dangerous than Marxism (Anatrella 2011). Through their appropriation of concepts such as “gender” and “feminism” that became part and parcel of their rhetoric, they hoped to reveal the “totalitarian dimension” of “gender ideology” in order to encourage communities “to resist this political project that is being silently imposed by a global elite through international institutions such as the UN, the European Council and the European Union (Paternotte, van der Dussen, and Piette 2015, 15). Some of these Church theorists denounced what they identified as a “postcolonial” discourse, which they insisted amounted to Western construction imposed upon African populations. Over the last 10 years, this framework (which focused on gender) and discursive strategies (denouncing “gender ideology”) have circulated very successfully in cyberspace and have contributed to the very strong mobilization characteristic of the French context. These (political) initiatives have put Christianity at the heart of the public sphere and shaped political debate but they have done so successfully without resorting to explicitly theological or religious arguments. When it comes to Islam, for instance, Christian movements have not necessarily mobilized around the issue of gender but around the issue of terrorism and of the various “headscarf” affairs that have emerged in France since the late 1990s. Overall, these groups protest a social contract anchored in the recognition of gender and sexual equality (Laufer and Rochefort 2014).

The second Trump administration’s accusation of “gender ideology extremism”

From Saskia Brechenmacher, Senior Fellow of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “Trump’s ‘Gender Ideology’ Attacks Are Following a Global Movement”:

Yet by using the language of gender ideology, Trump’s administration is also allying itself with a much broader movement, not only against trans rights but against progressive gender norms. While relatively new in the United States, references to gender ideology have been a key element of far-right and religious rhetoric and mobilization in Europe and Latin America for more than a decade. Across both continents, the term has been used to demand and justify far-reaching attacks on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, typically in the name of protecting the “natural family.” Rather than defending women, efforts to root out gender ideology from federal policies and programs represent a broader attempt to restore traditional gender norms and hierarchies. […]

The concept of gender ideology can be traced back to the 1990s, when the international women’s movement gained significant steam. At the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, the term “gender” was first used in an intergovernmental document, though it was left undefined. For some advocates, the term was largely synonymous with women. For others, the concept recognized the existence of nonbinary individuals and helped draw attention to the sociocultural roles and norms imposed on men and women that in turn fuel hierarchies in resources and power.

This critique of gendered hierarchies provoked strong opposition from conservative Catholic groups. They feared that any understanding of gender as socially constructed rather than biologically determined would threaten a religiously defined gender order that rejects homosexuality and gender fluidity and views women and men as separate beings with distinct social and biological roles. In 2001, Pope John Paul II deplored that “misleading concepts concerning sexuality and the dignity and mission of the woman” are rooted in “specific ideologies on ‘gender.’” In the years that followed, the Vatican, Christian groups, and conservative Muslim-majority countries started using the term gender ideology to contest references to the socially constructed nature of gender in international negotiations, often arguing that these were code for homosexuality and a threat to the traditional family.

Over the past decade, these cultural battles have intensified, particularly in Latin America and Europe. Both regions have seen the emergence of ultraconservative and religious movements that are contesting the liberalization of women’s and LGBTQ rights by arguing that these efforts represent a radical gender ideology imposed on ordinary people by globalist elites. These campaigns are increasingly connected transnationally, through trainings, funding flows, and shared narratives. They are also gaining footholds in new regions, particularly in Africa. […]

Ultimately, the popularity of the gender ideology concept lies in its flexibility and ambiguity. It conveys a general sense of discontent with progressive gender norms and allows opponents to frame these norms as out of sync with both science and common sense. It also makes gender a useful stand-in for perceived problems with progressive equality politics more broadly and taps into fears about rapid cultural and social change. As such, campaigns against gender ideology have increasingly brought together diverse coalitions, including religious institutions and associations, mainstream conservative politicians, far-right political parties, professional associations, and parent groups.

What is extremism?

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue offers the following description and definition of extremism: “ISD response to UK Government extremism definition”:

ISD has long argued – including through its work as expert advisors to the original Counter Extremism Commission – for a human rights-based definition of extremism. ISD’s own working definition frames extremism as a supremacist system of belief based on the superiority of an identity group. By this ‘social identity’ conception, extremism— which can be pursued through violence, or mainstreamed through politics and social change — is fundamentally antithetical to pluralism and the universal application of fundamental rights and freedoms.

It is positive to see this new framing of extremism firmly rooted in the real threat of ideological violence, hatred and intolerance, to rights and freedoms, democratic institutions and civic culture. An approach focused on the concrete behaviours exhibited by extremists and the real-world impacts of these behaviours on victims, should help avoid intractable definitional debates. But a narrow focus on ‘ideology’ alone will be challenged by an ever more hybridised extremism environment, where radicalisation threats are increasingly characterised more by participation in amorphous violent online ecosystems rather than membership of specific groups.

Anti-gender extremism and anti-trans extremism

From NPR, “Trump’s anti-trans effort is an agenda cornerstone with echoes in history” (2025-02-06):

But her experience is just the latest in a pattern where Republican leaders and high-reach social media accounts scapegoat transgender people in the wake of high-profile tragedies. Similar false claims were made about perpetrators of mass shootings in Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin and Iowa. For extremism experts and some within the trans community, the accusations speak to a highly dangerous political strategy to sow division and expand authoritarian control. [..]

“There’s a ton of terrible claims saying that things like puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy is somehow causing aggression or violence in transgender and gender nonconforming people,” said Sarah Moore, senior manager of news and research at GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, “which we know to be completely contrary to the medical science behind these treatments.”

Moore said that the mischaracterization of transgender people as dangerous to society also lies behind a now-predictable response to national tragedies. Incorrect claims surfaced quickly after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Apalachee, Ga.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Houston, Texas; and Madison, Wis., asserting that the perpetrators were transgender.

Among those amplifying these incorrect narratives were Republican members of Congress. “Another trans shooter,” tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia after the 2023 Philadelphia rampage, which left five people dead. In the aftermath of a mass shooting at a church in Lakewood, Texas, in 2024, Sen. Joshua Hawley of Missouri tweeted, “So the Lakewood church shooter was a transgender, pro-Palestine radical…” And in a tweet that was later deleted, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona lay the blame for the 2022 killing of 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school on “a transsexual leftist illegal alien.” In all of these cases, the claims were false. […]

The intensity of the Trump administration’s focus on one marginalized group is raising alarm among extremism experts, who note that trans people make up less than 1% of adults in the U.S.

“It’s ushering in a new era of efforts toward segregation in our society,” said Hanah Stiverson, associate director of Democracy Protection at Human Rights First, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. “It’s incredibly dangerous.”

Stiverson said the politicization of trans people has troubling historical precedent.

“One of the first trans health clinics in the world was in pre-World War II Germany. It was the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin,” she said. “And it was one of the very first targets of the rising Nazi party.”

Nazi youth ransacked the institute in May, 1933, and burned tens of thousands of books from its library.

“It was used as an easy target to rally support to their political ideology and to escalate the forms of violence that society found acceptable,” said Stiverson. “What I see currently happening in the United States is the same strategy.”

From the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, “A Year of Hate: Anti-Drag Mobilization Efforts Targeting LGBTQ+ People in the US” (2023):

Anti-drag activity in the US, both online and offline, is not limited to a few lone actors or fringe groups. It has become a unifying topic for far-right extremist groups and localized activists, and it is increasingly common to see different local groups attending or organizing protests targeting the same event. […]

Some individuals have more influence on this issue than others, such as anti-LGBTQ+ actor Chaya Raichik, who runs the Libs of TikTok account on Twitter, and who was one of the most popular and prolific disseminators of anti-drag content analyzed for this research. The content Raichik shared was found across all categories of groups observed and has shaped narratives around drag performers and people attending drag events – even inspiring several offshoot groups and pages on Twitter and Telegram such as “Libs of TikTok Fans” or “Retards of TikTok”. Her videos and posts can earn millions of views, frequently listing addresses, names of organizers and supporters, and phone numbers and email addresses of companies or organizations that host events. This content has been observed to garner violent replies and comments.

The resharing of content originally shared by Raichik, and the proliferation of similar narratives about drag performers, shows that even though these groups may not always align with each other on other topics such as race, gender, or religion, they are united in their views about drag performers and transgender people. These similar views often mean that drag events can be (and have been) targeted by multiple separate groups – whether they planned to protest together or not.

Based on data gathered and analyzed by ISD, the Proud Boys are the group with the most significant influence on online tactics and narratives about drag performers and events and have been present for the most offline protests reviewed as part of this research. While anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments and mobilization have always existed amongst Proud Boys groups, the targeting of LGBTQ+ events started early 2022 and snowballed after June 2022, or what some Proud Boys groups referred to as “groomer awareness month.” Both online and offline (in chants or posters), Proud Boys have become regular users of the “groomer” slur. […]

ISD also identified local White Lives Matter, NSC-131 (Neo-Nazis), Active Clubs (white supremacists), Blood Tribe (neo-Nazis), and other extremist and white supremacist groups targeting drag events online and offline in the past year. ISD found several instances in which members of multiple extremist, supremacist, or far-right groups attended. One in early March 2023 occurred when a DQSH held in Ohio was protested by local White Lives Matter, Blood Tribe and Proud Boys groups. Protestors were armed, several physical fights occurred, and two protestors were arrested. While the Proud Boys denounced the neo-Nazis at the Ohio event, calling both Nazis and “groomers” their “enemies,” the increased presence of conflicting groups only increases the odds of physical clashes, which could potentially escalate to further violence.

ISD found that “parents’ rights” groups have also become involved in anti-drag activity. Parents’ rights groups have been active in the US for the last century, reacting to or protesting desegregation, sex education, and books they consider inappropriate in the classroom or library. More recently, some parent’s rights groups also organized against schools’ COVID-19 safety measures, which sometimes evolved into protesting all vaccinations.

Here it is important to flag that by no means all individuals or groups involved in anti-drag activity are extremists. Some “parents’ rights” groups such as Protect Texas Kids express intolerant attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people but do not meet ISD‘s threshold for extremism. However, convergences and coalition building are still important phenomena; these groups and the events they organize and attend represent vectors through which extremists can influence broader social movements.

“Moms for Liberty”, for example, has spearheaded the book banning movement, often disguising anti-student inclusion efforts as initiatives to protect children. A Tennessee chapter attempted to remove books about Martin Luther King Jr and Ruby Bridges from a 2nd grade curriculum, stating the books promoted “anti-American” and “anti-white” sentiments. In 2022, the American Library Association found that there were 1,269 attempts to ban books across the country: some of them were led by Moms for Liberty. A vast majority of the books were by or about LGBTQ+ people and/or people of color.

More recently, parents’ rights groups have protested drag performances and drag story hours for children. The individuals behind these groups may be different, but the goal and primary narratives the groups push against drag performers are identical to those of the groups discussed above: they are trying to “groom” younger children; they are pedophiles; and they are pushing an LGBTQ+ agenda on minors. […]

Now, with 274.7K followers on Twitter, GAG members have moved to more offline action. Members have written letters to companies hosting all-ages drag shows asking that they restrict or cancel the event, claiming they want to prevent “premature exposure” to drag and threatening to draw negative attention to their business. Chris Barrett, a member from GAG Missouri, testified at the Tennessee Criminal Justice Committee supporting the state’s anti-drag bill in February. Local chapters have also formed in North Carolina and Illinois, and members have attended school board meetings and even met with officials to try to put “an end to drag queen story hours.”

Unlike the extremist and white supremacist groups referenced above, these anti-LGBTQ+ groups do not just focus on protesting drag events. Rather, they have a wide range of strategies to attack drag events at different levels, and their activism extends to attacking trans rights — particularly access to healthcare. […]

The most common narratives found in the content analyzed by ISD slander drag performers and those who support drag events – including businesses, librarians, and parents – as “pedophiles” or “groomers.” In the past year, the “groomer” slur has not just been used in the context of drag events but has also been used against members of the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.

Anti-drag activists frequently equate all-ages drag shows with child abuse, citing what they believe to be the sexualized nature of the performances. Some call for adults involved to be arrested and charged (see Figure 18).

The term “gender ideology” has been adopted by some anti-drag protestors to make the claim that drag performers are attempting to indoctrinate children through their performances. Anti-drag activity is therefore framed as resistance against what one anti-drag activist group, Protect Texas Kids, calls the “leftist machine [coming] for [their] children.”

What is an accusation in a mirror?

From H. Colleen Sinclair, Associate Professor of Social Psychology, Mississippi State University, “Incitement to violence is rarely explicit – here are some techniques people use to breed hate”:

“Competitive victimhood” is used to portray the ingroup as the “real” victim – especially if ingroup “innocents” like women and children have been harmed by the outgroup. Sometimes past acts of the outgroups are fabricated and used as scapegoats for the ingroup’s past misfortunes. For instance, Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany losing World War I.

A particularly dangerous fabrication is when outgroups are accused of plotting against the ingroup the very deeds the ingroup is planning, if not actually committing, against the outgroup. Researchers coined the term “accusations in a mirror” after this strategy was explicitly described in a Hutu propaganda handbook following the Rwandan genocide. […]

Effective dangerous speech gets people to overcome internal resistance to inflicting harm.

This can be accomplished by making it seem like no other options remain to defend the ingroup from the threat presented by the outgroup. Less extreme options are dismissed as exhausted or ineffective. The outgroup can’t be “saved.”

From Kenneth L. Marcus, “Accusation in a Mirror”:

The basic idea of AiM is deceptively simple: propagandists must “impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do.” In other words, AiM is a rhetorical practice in which one falsely accuses one’s enemies of conducting, plotting, or desiring to commit precisely the same transgressions that one plans to commit against them. For example, if one plans to kill one’s adversaries by drowning them in a particular river, then one should accuse one’s adversaries of plotting precisely the same crime. As a result, one will accuse one’s enemies of doing the same thing despite their plans. It is similar to a false anticipatory tu quoque: before one’s enemies accuse one truthfully, one accuses them falsely of the same misdeed. […]

As Alison Des Forges explains in her authoritative examination of the Note that presents a detailed analysis of Psycholohie de la publicicité et de la propaganda that “[a propagandist] advocates using lies, exaggeration, ridicule, and innuendo to attack the opponent, in both his public and his private life.” Id. The propagandist suggests that “moral considerations are irrelevant, except when they happen to offer another weapon against the other side.” Id. A propagandist “must persuade the public that the adversary stands for war, death, slavery, repression, injustice, and sadistic cruelty.” Id. The propagandist then suggests two techniques that would later be used in the Rwanda genocide. Id. The first is to create phony events that could be used later to give credence to propaganda. Id. The second is AiM: “In this way, the party which is using terror will accuse the enemy of using terror.” Id. […]

Despite its counter-intuitive nature, AiM has proven to be one of the central mechanisms by which genocidaires publicly and directly incite genocide, in part because it turns out to be quite effective. Once AiM’s structure and functions are understood, its pervasive and efficacious presence can be discerned not only in mass-murder but also in a host of lesser persecutions. These qualities can make AiM an indispensable tool for identifying and prosecuting incitement. […]

AiM’s directness can be seen in both its widespread usage by genocidaires and its effectiveness. First, AiM has historically been an almost invariable harbinger of genocide. As this Article explains, AiM has been commonly used in atrocities committed by Nazis, Serbs, and Hutus, among others. This is a peculiar feature, not of genocide, but of AiM since non-genocidal forms of AiM have also been ubiquitous with respect to other forms of persecution. This can be seen in what this Article will describe as the myths of the Indian giver, the black rapist, and the murderous Jew.

Second, AiM is extraordinarily effective as a means of facilitating genocide and other forms of persecution. This is largely because of the manner in which it legitimizes the crimes it describes, but also because AiM serves at least five other functions, both in genocidal and non-genocidal contexts: to shock, to silence, to threaten, to insulate, and, finally, to motivate or incite. The extraordinary efficacy of this method, combined with the great frequency of its usage, suggests that it should raise the same flags as the more commonly discussed methods of demonization and dehumanization. In contrast to these techniques, however, AiM is more direct in the sense that it communicates a specific message to its listeners (i.e., do unto others as they would do unto you). […]

AiM’s genocidal directness can be seen first in the frequency with which it is used as a precursor to mass-murder. As a general rule, the more frequently a trope is repeated in common discourse, the more readily its meaning is understood. It is in this sense that Judith Butler observes, “[I]f a performative provisionally succeeds . . . then it is . . . only because that action echoes prior actions, and accumulates the force of authority through the repetition or citation of a prior and authoritative set of practices.” AiM operates by issuing false claims against a vulnerable population through repetition in a manner that listeners have already been primed by prior practices to understand as a call to arms.

AiM has been widespread not only among those who intend to perpetrate genocide, but also among a wide range of persons who consciously or unconsciously defame persecuted minorities. This is illustrated in the myths of the Indian giver, black racist, and murderous Jew. Genocide scholars will better understand the concept if they situate it within a broader domestic and international human rights context. Similarly, civil and human rights scholars will better understand other forms of discrimination and persecution if they can discern the continuities between domestic defamations and genocidal murder. The commonness of the technique is important to appreciate, not only because it underscores the need to identify its occurrence in genocidal and pre-genocidal contexts and to respond with appropriate alacrity, but also because it underscores how critical it is for courts to recognize its relationship to incitement. […]

Some readers have cautioned that grouping genocidal incitement together with lesser group defamations could create problems for the freedom of speech. This assumes, however, that these parallels are drawn for regulatory or punitive purposes. In fact, a better understanding of the commonness and efficacy of AiM—even in domestic, non-regulable contexts—can advance our understanding of the consequences of certain forms of communication in ways that have little to do with criminal prosecution. Among other implications, it may substantiate Alexander Tsesis’s argument regarding the long-term effects of hate speech. See Alexander Tsesis, The Empirical Shortcomings of First Amendment Jurisprudence: A Historical Perspective on the Power of Hate Speech, 40 Santa Clara L. Rev. 729, 731 (2000) (“[H]ate speech is not only dangerous when it poses an immediate threat of harm, but also when it is systematically developed and thereby becomes part of culturally acceptable dialogue.”). […]

The Nazis’ AiM technique evolved in tandem with their human rights abuses leading up to genocide. Early on, for example, Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels wrote about fictitious Jewish plans to sterilize Germans at a time when Germans were actually sterilizing thousands of Jewish victims, as well as persons with various disabilities. Later, as the German government escalated its persecution of Jews to mass-murder, Nazi AiM was similarly upgraded. Thus, Goebbels asked in a 1941 pamphlet, “Who should die, the Germans or the Jews? . . . You know what your eternal enemy and opponent intends for you. There is only one instrument against his plans for annihilation.” […]

Fritzsche, head of the German Propaganda Ministry’s Radio Division, was accused of falsifying news to incite the German people to commit atrocities. […] Specifically, the court found that Fritzche did not have control over the development of propaganda policies, but was instead merely a conduit for directives from more senior officials. Nevertheless, a German court later convicted Fritzsche on similar charges and sentenced him to nine years of hard labor. The German appeals court affirmed the conviction, emphasizing that Fritzsche had practiced what one might call AiM. […]

The AiM technique was used throughout the Rwandan massacre, not only by Mugesera, but also by other Hutu leaders who falsely accused Tutsis of plotting precisely the crimes that the Hutus were plotting against them. For example, in 1991, La Médaille Nyiramacibiri claimed that Tutsis were conspiring to “clean up Rwanda . . . by throwing Hutu in the Nyabarongo [River].” This accusation would become infamous when Leon Mugesera leveled it against Tutsis the following year. The specificity of the accusation is significant because the Hutus did not merely charge Tutsis with murderous intent; rather, they accused them specifically of wanting to throw Hutus to their death in the Nyabarongo. This is a perfect example of inversion, considering many Tutsis were thrown to their deaths in the very same river.

From the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, “Colorado Springs shooting: The latest in a transnational, upward trend of anti-LGBTQ hate”:

This spike in anti-LGBTQ+ hate being seen around the world tracks a parallel rise in rhetoric from right-wing politicians, media and illiberal strongmen who seek to stoke fear and antagonism about ‘gender ideology’, to demonise trans people and to frame the very existence of LGBTQ+ families as an attack on ‘traditional values’.

These conversations are taking place against a broader geopolitical backdrop in which a range of far-right and authoritarian political leaders and actors are wielding homophobia and transphobia for political ends. From the self-destructive aggression of Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia to Hungary’s rapid descent into autocracy under Viktor Orbán and the democratic collapse of Turkey, illiberal leaders have weaponised homophobia and transphobia into a cudgel for a broader attack on democratic rights and freedoms. […]

The connection between transphobia, hyperventilated rhetoric about ‘gender ideology’ and attacks on the liberal democratic order was powerfully illustrated when Russia’s Putin gave a speech on 30 Sept announcing the greatest forcible annexation of territory in Europe since the Second World War.

In his speech, Putin treated the annexation as little more than prologue for a long, rambling diatribe on the evils of the West. He railed against “perversions that lead to degradation and extinction… that there are various supposed genders besides women and men, and to be offered a sex change operation” being imposed on Russia.

This tirade was building on over a decade of work by Putin and his administration to frame geopolitical competition between Russia and the West as a clash over ‘traditional values’, in a thinly-coded reference to acceptance and rights for LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. These so-called ‘culture war issues’ are an inextricable part of the Russian government’s strategy for pushing back, both at home and abroad, against the appeal of liberal democracy.

In 2022, the ‘culture war’ is also built into Russia’s narrative strategy in the literal war. The role of homophobia and transphobia in Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine is second only to its wild claims that the government in Kyiv is composed of Nazis (and, in a sign of how logically incoherent Russia’s propaganda has become, sometimes the two are even combined). As the war in Ukraine grinds on, at home the Russian government continues to pass a series of increasingly draconian legislation aimed at repressing, silencing and marginalising LGBTQ+ Russians. […]

The political discussion around the Don’t Say Gay bill sparked a huge rise in online hate speech and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs, according to a report from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate and The Human Rights Campaign. It also played a central role in the emergence of a new conspiracy theory narrative, the inherently homophobic and transphobic ‘Groomer’ conspiracy narrative.

The language of ‘groomers’ was reportedly part of a deliberate strategy by DeSantis and his team to appeal to conservative and right-wing American constituencies by baselessly inferring a connection between Democrats, LGBTQ+ communities and paedophilia.

Intentionally or not, the language appears to have been a clear dogwhistle to conspiracy theory groups, particularly groups descended from QAnon and Save The Children movements. These conspiracy theories are based in part around the belief that a cabal of Democrats and other high-profile left-wing figures are harvesting the blood of children. This in turn ties back to older conspiracy theories including the Satanic Panic and the antisemitic blood libel conspiracy theory.

What is dangerous speech?

The Dangerous Speech Project research team studies dangerous speech, defined by the project as “any form of communication that can increase the risk that one group of people will violently turn against another group”.

“What is Dangerous Speech?”:

Dangerous speech is any form of expression (including speech, text, or images) that can increase the risk that its audience will condone or participate in violence against members of another group. Susan Benesch coined this term (and founded the Dangerous Speech Project) after observing that fear-inducing, divisive rhetoric rises steadily before outbreaks of mass violence and that it is often uncannily similar, even in different countries, cultures, and historical periods. We call these rhetorical similarities ‘hallmarks’ of dangerous speech. One familiar example of them is dehumanization, in which people are often described as insects, vermin, bacteria, or cancer.

This can make violence seem acceptable: if people seem like cockroaches or infectious germs, it’s fine to get rid of them.

Another hallmark is to tell people that they face a mortal threat from a disfavored or minority group, which makes violence seem not just acceptable, but necessary. This hallmark has been dubbed ‘accusation in a mirror’ because it asserts that violence would come from the opposite side – from those who are actually the would-be victims of violence.

Antisemitism and antisemitic conspiracy theories in anti-trans and anti-gender movements