Global migrations of the discourse of “gender ideology” and moral panics: transnational fundamentalism from the Vatican to Turkey

Abstract

This article looks at the gender regime of the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) in Turkey through the double lenses of “gender ideology” and moral panics. It traces the itinerary along which “gender ideology” as a reactionary discourse has traveled through a landscape stretching from the Vatican to Turkey. This trajectory places the AKP’s gender perspective and policies within a larger right-wing populist rhetoric of transnational fundamentalism which claims gender is an ideology. The “gender ideology” discourse of the AKP is maintained through a constant sense of crisis which reveals itself in moments of moral panics. The article specifically takes the period of 2019–2020 where such a moment of moral panic was heightened and examines this specific period through an analysis of public speeches of political figures, newspaper articles, and other published materials on the issue. The article shows how this fundamentalist discourse of “gender ideology” and its concomitant strategy of moral panics built an oppressive political environment for women and LGBTI+ people in Turkey and paved the road to the country’s withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention in 2021.