20.500.12556/RUL-180165 Wielding the power of knowledge anti-gender mobilizations and the strategic (mis)use of epistemic authority This article examines how anti-gender mobilizations strategically (mis)use knowledge and epistemic authority to legitimize their claims. Focusing on the manual Children Are at Stake! A Manual for Mothers, Fathers, and Teachers to Protect Children from LGBTQIA+ Ideology , we situate our analysis within broader global patterns of anti-gender campaigns that target schools, universities, and academic freedom. While previous scholarship has described such practices as ‘troll science’ or ‘counterknowledge’, our study advances this work by identifying the specific mechanisms through which such knowledge is produced and mobilized. Using a mixed-methods approach, we coded 24 references cited in the manual and analysed the relationship between these sources and the claims they were used to support. The results show three distinct techniques of knowledge (mis)use: the Torsion Technique (twisting knowledge through interpretative extension or distortion), the Magician’s Technique (fabricating relevance through phantomized or invented connections), and the Echo Technique (accurately summarizing ideologically aligned but questionable sources). Together, these strategies demonstrate how anti-gender actors exploit the symbolic authority of science, often stripped of context and sensationalized, to produce a parallel politics of knowledge. We argue that these practices not only delegitimize critical scholarship but also generate alternative epistemologies that reinforce retrotopian visions of social order. anti-gender mobilizations epistemic struggles epistemic authority troll science counterknowledge knowledge misuse spolne manjšine diskriminacija zaradi spolne usmerjenosti true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2026-03-04 11:59:39 2026-03-04 11:59:47 2026-03-05 04:28:34 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 22 str. no. Vol. 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova VTisku NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 305 0958-9236 10.1080/09589236.2026.2637522 270418691 Perger_Kuhar_JGS.pdf Perger_Kuhar_JGS.pdf 1 812636C887FCC22A8228ED1EE59A0B09 349108ffd2aad1d9e1cd257fd4586e098a0c2a1a87f6178429a9ff72d105acc1 842adace-17b9-11f1-a1ba-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=229317 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09589236.2026.2637522 0 909db9bf-17b9-11f1-a1ba-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=229318 Fakulteta za družbene vede Filozofska fakulteta 0 0 0