The effects of anti-gender activism on Latin American democracies: a comparison of Brazil and Peru

In Latin America, anti-gender activism has flourished in recent decades, with consequences for feminist and LGBTQ+ movements and the political representation of their agenda. We compare two countries, Brazil and Peru, where these campaigns have reshaped public debates. They entered the field of electoral competition, congress dynamics and government policymaking in the 2010s. However, the political processes preceding the rise of this activism in both countries are significantly different. Through a process-tracing comparative analysis, we explore the factors that account for the variation in the effects of anti-gender activism on previously achieved gains in women’s and sexual minorities’ rights. We consider the disputes over gender and sexuality as they were embedded in local political processes and focus our empirical analysis on the mechanisms that characterize antigender actions in three contentious issues: abortion, same-sex marriage and sex education. We show that the two countries saw a backlash against gender perspectives in policy and reproductive and sexual rights. However, the effects varied according to institutional factors and local contexts of opportunities for opposing actors to be involved in party politics and access state resources.