The Politics of “Gender Ideology”

Session Submission Type: Invited Session (90 minute)

Description

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has launched a sweeping executive-branch offensive against transgender and gender-diverse persons under the banner of “defending women,” “biological truth,” and the rejection of “gender ideology” as a state doctrine. These executive orders—ranging from the rollback of federal nondiscrimination protections and the elimination of DEI programs to bans on transgender participation in sports, restrictions on gender-affirming care, and prohibitions on teaching so-called “gender ideology” in schools—mark a coordinated attempt to redefine sex and gender through state power. Framed as efforts to restore “biological reality” and protect women, these policies draw upon far-right and religious nationalist moral panics that conflate gender diversity with social decay. The result is a regime that uses the language of protection and truth to justify exclusion, erasure, and repression. This is an invited session that analyzes how these executive actions are reshaping law, education, health, and activism; how federal agencies, courts, and civil society actors are responding or resisting; and how this discourse intersects with race, citizenship, and religious nationalism. The session especially highlights intersectional and antifascist analyses that situate “gender ideology” within broader histories of state violence and authoritarian governance, illuminating its consequences for knowledge production, pedagogy, and collective resistance.

Sub Unit

• Sociology of Sex and Gender Section / The Politics of “Gender Ideology”

Presider

• Lindsey Trimble O'Connor, California State University-Channel Islands

Panelists

• Kathleen Blee, University of Pittsburgh

• Travers Travers, Simon Fraser University

• Anima Adjepong, University of Cincinnati

• Daniel Laurison, Swarthmore College

Session Organizer

• Jinsun Yang, University of Oregon