Knowledge Production, Academia, and 'Anti-Gender' Mobilisations

In this article we show how epistemic resilience and resistance in the face of institutionalised bureaucracies and political 'anti-gender' interferences, are key to the academic freedoms and SOGIESC-inclusive higher education (HE). We draw on the findings from the EU-funded project RESIST: Fostering Queer Feminist Intersectional Resistances against Transnational Anti-Gender Politics, especially the case study on Poland, to evidence a range of examples of political medling with research and education. We show the workings of the institutional epistemic ignorance, forms of epistemic violence in HE, and manifestations of epistemic injustice in knowledge production across academia and broader RDI (research, development and innovation) sectors. Across the globe, researchers in gender and sexuality have identified a significant shift in knowledge production driven by ‘anti-gender’ mobilisations. Movements opposing LGBTIQ+ rights, trans rights, reproductive and sexual health rights - most often also voicing xenophobic, anti-migrant, and racist views - increasingly assert (pseudo) scientific evidence against what they label ‘gender ideology’, portraying the latter as unscientific and excessive in its ‘ideological’ demands (Kuhar 2015, Graff and Korolczuk 2022, RESIST Project 2024). The heightened scrutiny of gender studies by ‘anti-gender’ public figures and politicians, who have made knowledge production their main battleground, has resulted in direct attacks to academic freedoms as described by Peto (2016), Paternotte (2019), Ergas et al. (2022), and Kuhar (2025), amongst others. The situation is compounded, on the one hand, by a broader distrust of experts and academic institutions, significantly fuelled by right-wing populists (Graff and Korolczuk 2022), and on the other hand, by ‘anti-gender’ voices permeating feminist and queer communities that manifest in transphobic, trans-exclusionary and so called ‘gender critical’ stances (Hines 2025, RESIST Project 2024a, 2024b). All of this leads to a paradoxical predicament in which knowledge producers in academia and in civil society must counter quasi-scientific discourses and methods used to uphold specific moral positions, all while defending themselves against accusations of being morally and ideologically biased.