Progressive grantmakers around the world are witnessing accusations of “gender ideology” and related models of manufactured gender panic used as oppositional tools to block, erode, and attack the goals and activities of their grantees. This especially impacts those who fund feminist organizations and groups working for LGBTI human rights. Grantmaking programs that focus on children and youth, sexual health and reproductive rights/reproductive justice, sexual orientation, HIV/AIDS, health-care access, sports, defense of democracy, environmental justice, and other fields are also impacted. Indeed, grantmakers with focus areas that may seem unrelated are called to find common cause, given their shared experiences of opposition from the “anti-gender” movement.
At the same time, progressive funders come under direct attack by those within the anti-gender movement and their political allies whose conspiracy theories often center around George Soros and the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations (OSF) and other progressive grantmakers. For example, a June 2021 article...
