The geopolitics of moral panic: The influence of Argentinian neo-conservatism in the genesis of the discourse of ‘gender ideology’

Abstract

‘Gender ideology’ discourse has been one of the most recurrent strategies of neo-conservative activism at a global level. Through this syntagma, a variety of moral panics have been mobilized against feminist agendas and LGBTI rights, accusing them of promoting the destruction of natural order, the spread of Marxism and global conspiracy. The academic literature has highlighted that the genesis of this strategic discourse was an intellectual production in the mid-1990s; we can trace back texts written in conjunction by secular neo-conservative intellectuals in the United States and members of the Catholic hierarchy. However, the tendency has been to ignore the strong intellectual production that neo-conservative activists developed at that time in Argentina, particularly in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, which helped to lay the foundations of the present ‘gender ideology’ discourse. The intention of this work is to draw attention to that local production and its connection with the ideas that were being developed in parallel in the global North. In order to do this, the article analyzes a series of texts produced by neo-conservatives in Argentina in the 1990s.