When politicians target women’s autonomy or LGBTQ+ equality, the consequences extend beyond the people immediately affected. Such campaigns can help normalize unequal citizenship, weaken independent institutions, and expand the state’s control over private life.
Researchers discussing this relationship at a recent Stellenbosch University conference warned against treating these attacks as peripheral political disputes. Reporting published on October 22 highlighted political scientist Andrea Krizsán’s argument that subordinating women and LGBTQ+ people can form a central part of an authoritarian project.
The warning deserves attention because a government does not need to abolish elections to undermine democracy. It can retain the language of rights while steadily narrowing who gets to exercise them.
Making some citizens less equal
A January 2026 report from the European research project CCINDLE examines how anti-gender politics contributes to democratic erosion. Drawing on research across six European countries and the EU level, it identifies connections involving coercion, interference with knowledge production, and manipulation of democratic institutions. The researchers argue that exclusionary rhetoric can develop into exclusionary institutional arrangements.
The underlying danger is straightforward. A government can portray one model of family, sexuality, or gender as the authentic expression of the nation. People outside that model then become easier to depict as alien, dangerous, or undeserving.
Once that distinction takes hold, equal citizenship becomes conditional. People must demonstrate that they fit an approved identity before their freedoms receive the same consideration as everyone else’s.
An election victory cannot make that arrangement democratic in any meaningful sense of equality. Majority support gives a government authority to govern. It does not give it unlimited authority over minorities.
Controlling what people can know
The CCINDLE report also examines attacks on academic freedom and efforts to discredit or reshape institutions that produce knowledge. Its analysis connects these interventions with wider attempts to weaken democratic debate and feminist participation.
The distinction between criticism and political control matters. Researchers should face difficult questions, and educational policies should remain open to debate. However, suppressing an academic field or punishing people for inconvenient findings does not improve the evidence.
Instead, it changes the conditions under which public discussion happens. If authorities decide which conclusions are acceptable before research begins, citizens lose an independent means of assessing official claims.
That danger extends well beyond questions of gender. The same principle protects research on corruption, public health, environmental damage, and state violence.
Turning fear into permission
For an authoritarian movement, portraying a group as a threat can serve several purposes. It gives supporters a common enemy, presents leaders as protectors, and makes exceptional restrictions appear necessary.
The critical question is what happens after the accusation. Does a proposed policy address a specific, demonstrated harm? Or does it restrict an entire group’s ability to speak, organize, receive services, or participate in public life?
Protecting children, supporting families, and preventing violence are legitimate responsibilities. Those aims still require evidence and proportionate measures. They cannot become permanent excuses for denying equal treatment.
Likewise, religious freedom protects people’s ability to hold and practice beliefs. It should not grant any religious institution unrestricted power to impose those beliefs on everyone else.
Disagreement is not automatically authoritarian
This analysis does not mean that every conservative voter supports dictatorship. Nor does every disagreement about reproductive policy, education, or gender establish an authoritarian agenda. Democratic societies must allow difficult arguments without reducing opponents to caricatures.
The warning becomes more serious when restrictions on equality accompany intimidation, censorship, political interference in institutions, or efforts to silence civil society. Those combinations deserve scrutiny because they affect whether disagreement remains genuinely free.
Women and LGBTQ+ people should not have to prove that defending their rights benefits everyone else. Their dignity already supplies sufficient reason. Nevertheless, when a government learns that it can strip one group of meaningful protection, everyone has reason to question where its power will stop.
