
- ISSN 2211-3770
- E-ISSN: 2211-3789
Enregistering “gender ideology”
The emergence and circulation of a transnational anti-gender language
- Author(s):Rodrigo Borba1
- Source:Journal of Language and Sexuality,Volume 11, Issue 1,Feb 2022,p.57 - 79
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.21003.bor
- Version of Record published :11 Feb 2022
Abstract
Abstract
Mobilizations against gender equality and sexual diversity have gained political traction globally despite theirhyperbolic modes of action and conspiracist rhetoric. These anti-gender campaigns rally around “gender ideology,” a trope used toanathemize feminist and LGBTQIA+ activism/scholarship. This paper argues that anti-genderism is a register – a conventionalizedaggregate of expressive forms and enactable person-types – of which “gender ideology” is the most famous shibboleth. The papershows how inchoate collections of words, modes of action, and images of people (i.e. signs) have been enregistered into thecohesive but heterogeneous whole of anti-genderism through semiotic processes of clasping, relaying, and grafting (Gal 2018;2019). The paper offers asociolinguistic analysis of anti-genderism to understand the challenges it poses to the enfranchisement of women, queer, trans,and nonbinary people.
