Resisting the Anti-Gender Agenda: Launch of the Transfeminist Playbook

2024 was a turbulent and defining election year, highlighting that anti-gender mobilization strategies work by the book. Extensive research has been conducted on who the actors are and which narratives they use. Now, the next step on the feminist agenda is clear: build alliances and resist!

In order to strengthen the queer feminist response, we need to understand anti-gender narratives, have clear communication strategies, and use language that resonates across different communities. 

The Transfeminist Playbook is a publication made by Trans Mreza Balkan that serves as a guide for counteracting, and building solidarity within feminist and democratic movements while addressing the harmful impact of anti-gender narratives. The book provides case studies from three Western Balkan countries, which can be used across the world and communities, dealing with anti-democratic, anti-feminist, and antigender actors and governments. The Playbook is a practical toolkit for trans people and allies, providing real-life strategies, but also a call for action and solidarity. 

In this conversation, the authors of the book share mutual struggles and guidelines on how to stay resilient, in solidarity, and hopeful.

Panleists:            

•  Jovan Dzoli Ulicevic, Montenegro
  Activist and founder of several queer feminist organizations (Spektra, Trans Mreža Balkan, LGBTIQ Association of Queer Montenegro). Biologist and ecologist, currently finishing International Relations at Humanity Studies. The focus of his work is anti-fascism, queer activism, feminism and decolonialism. Dzoli also serves in the Activist Circle of Guerilla Foundation.
   
• Aleksa Milanović (PhD), Serbia
  Associate professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade and the author of two books: Representation of Transgender Identities in Visual Arts (2015) and Media Construction of Other Body (2019), end co-editor of the book Transgender in the Post-Yugoslav Space: Lives, Activisms, Culture (2022). Involved in LGBTIQ+ activism since 2008 and is a founding member of Trans Network Balkan in 2014, and Kolektiv Talas TIRV (Collective Wave TIGV) in 2020. 
   
• Marija Jovanović, Montenegro
  Activist from Podgorica, born in 1997. Third year in the psychology department of the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the University of Donja Gorica. She is an activist for the human rights of LGBTIQ people, a feminist and one of the founders of the Association Spectra. The main goal of her work in Spectra and otherwise is communicating feminist values and mainstreaming understanding of the mechanisms of oppression, and the interaction of the personal with the structural and political.