“Don’t mess with my kids”: Building the moral panic of the child under threat

Abstract

In recent years, diverse moral entrepreneurs have been responsible for disseminating a moral panic against school teaching materials, educational programs and art exhibitions that addressed gender differences and sexuality. This paper aims to analyze three episodes involved in panic: the reaction, in 2011, against teaching materials for confronting homophobia in schools; the discussion, that happened between 2014 and 2015, on educational plans in which the notion of "gender ideology" was disseminated; and, in 2017, the persecution to exhibitions and artistic performances in Porto Alegre and São Paulo that preceded the arrival of Judith Butler to Brazil. We will discuss how the building of moral panic depended on the strategic discursive resource of transforming initiatives that aimed to promote advances in sexual rights in a threat to children.