Wielding the power of knowledge : anti-gender mobilizations and the strategic (mis)use of epistemic authority

Perger, Nina (author), Kuhar, Roman (author)

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.

• Language: English
• Keywords: anti-gender mobilizations, epistemic struggles, epistemic authority, troll science, counterknowledge, knowledge misuse
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences; FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: In print
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: 22 str.
• Numbering: Vol. , no.
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-180165
• UDC: 305
• ISSN on article: 0958-9236
• DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2026.2637522
• COBISS.SI-ID: 270418691
• Publication date in RUL: 04.03.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of gender studies
• Shortened title: J. gend. stud.
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 0958-9236
• COBISS.SI-ID: 723989

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: spolne manjšine, diskriminacija zaradi spolne usmerjenosti