Short Abstract

Amidst the rise of anti-gender movements and authoritarianism, queer sexual education is increasingly under attack. This panel asks how to analyse and confront attacks on sexual education from a queer anthropological perspective. What is the role of sexual politics for affective polarisation?

Long Abstract

Across the world, queer and queer-feminist activists have been on the forefront of creating more inclusive sexual education, especially for youth, to facilitate access to support and empower people about their gendered, embodied and sexual wellbeing. In an increasingly polarised political climate and with the rise of right-wing nationalism and authoritarianism, queer sexual education is more and more under attack: In many countries across Europe and elsewhere, ultra right-wing, religious, and anti-gender groups, such as "La Manif pour tous" in France or "Concerned Parents" in Germany mobilise against what they see as attacks on traditional family values or the "early sexualisation" of children through sex education. Sexual education laws, in the US or Argentine, are defunded or changed to promote conservative values and stigmatise LGBTQ+ identities, rather than provide access to sexual and reproductive well-being, health and services. In digital spheres, queer activists and sexual educators are increasingly subject to hate speech or confronted with conspiracy narratives that see inclusive and queer sexual education as a foreign import or ideology.

On this background, we wish to ask: What happens when anthropologists engage with queer sexual education? How do we analyse and confront the multifaceted attacks on sexual education from a queer and queer-feminist perspective? Focusing on the emotions and affects produced by inclusive and queer sexual education and the mobilisation against it, we also wish to reflect on the role of gender and sexual politics for affective polarisation and its effects on gender and sex nonconforming youth as well as queer and queer-feminist educators and activists.

We look forward to both ethnographic and conceptual contributions on queer sexual education from a wide range of regional and political contexts.

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