Against colonisation through the ‘right’ narrative of gender: Decolonial perspectives on anti-genderism and the radical feminist response in contemporary Hungary

This chapter explores the question of how to decolonise gender-critical feminist logic through exposing the entanglement of cisheteropatriarchy with whiteness. The chapter argues that it is the meaning of a Western-centric ideal of ‘manhood’ that is at stake in the government’s rhetoric of anti-genderism in Hungary. The chapter contends that the gender-critical feminist critique of the government’s anti-gender politics is caught in a dominant neocolonial logic. The two otherwise oppositional dispositions share an empiricist effort to re-biologise gender, and counter the visibility of ‘cisness’ as a relatively distinct element of embodiment, foregrounded by contemporary trans* claims to liveable life. They jointly reiterate white European male subjects as the most vulnerable targets, as well as the most successful survivors of ‘genderism.’ The chapter points out that the competition for authority may only result in a counterproductive fight for the ‘right way’ of narrating sexual difference, as strategies of telling sexual difference according to relative distinctions are inevitably productive of multiple narratives of gender(ing). This may enable us to sideline a neoliberal nostalgia for ‘progressive politics,’ and instead build a solidarity of trust.