Journal of Right-Wing Studies

Since at least 2012, right-wing politicians, media, and the Catholic Church have been demonizing the LGBTQ+ community as promoters of the “LGBT ideology,” a substitute term for “gender ideology” in Poland. The vitriolic anti-LGBTQ+ discourse has become a central resource in the right-wing construction of Polish patriotism and national identity. This discourse is adopted by many mainstream conservative public figures and is part of the global anti-genderism register that has been taken up by transnationally linked actors and institutions. In this article, I adopt Critical Discourse Analysis, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, and the Discourse Historical Approach to examine how anti-genderist actors in Poland discursively construct “truth” through what looks like logical argumentation and appeals to assumed “common sense” knowledge, and how such constructions are used to support appeals to emotion and Catholic faith while also co-opting and redefining progressive terms and concepts in service of right-wing agendas. This strategy departs from the anti-intellectual rhetoric typical of right-wing populism. The article is based on an analysis of 216 emails sent in an email newsletter by the ultraconservative Catholic NGO Centrum Życia i Rodziny (Center for Life and Family) between September 2020 and July 2023.