This winter, the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) coalition voiced an intention “to protect society from pseudo-liberal ideology.” The outcome of this process became clear in recent weeks. First, draft constitutional changes were announced  in late March that would designate members of Georgia’s LGBTQ community as second-class citizens. Then in early April, Georgian Dream doubled down by re-introducing the so-called “foreign agents” bill, which critics fear will enable officials to constrict the country’s non-governmental sector. 

Prior to the unveiling of the proposed constitutional changes, Mamuka Mdinaradze, the leader of GD’s parliamentary faction, attempted to defuse human rights concerns, saying that the initiative would not interfere with freedom of speech or the rights guaranteed by the constitution of Georgia. Yet, when defining “pseudo-liberal propaganda,” he brought up familiar tropes of “non-traditional sexual orientation” allegedly promoted by pseudo-liberals, as well as gender-neutral terminology “including parent 1 and parent 2.” 

For anyone paying minimal attention to Georgian politics or, indeed, far-right politics in general, this language is hardly cryptic, Georgia-specific, or new. Across the world, far-right actors have rallied against what they call “gender ideology” for decades, from religious anti-abortion groups to TradWives and from granola Nazis to trans-exclusionary radical feminists.  

The playbook is unoriginal and almost impressively predictable across countries and contexts. Almost always, the emphasis is on protecting “the people” from an ideology determined to break down what is framed as “family values.” 

To further increase its emotional appeal, this playbook instrumentalizes children. The argument is that “gender ideology” threatens children’s rights in different ways, and this threat can be anything from “forcing” a particular gender identity or sexuality on children to pedophilia.

Behind this framing is a discriminatory undercurrent. When stripped to its core, opposition to “gender ideology” implies a strictly exclusionary definition of who is to be considered as part of “the people,” what is considered to be a “family” and what “individual rights” actually mean. These definitions invariably exclude minority groups, those defined as outsiders due to their gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, or indeed, any other identity marker. 

What this also means, somewhat counterintuitively, is that this protective framing overlooks the actual needs of families, as well as violations of basic individual rights.  

In Georgia’s case, the chief needs of most families are rooted in economics. A brief look at public opinion surveys is enough to see that Georgian households have long struggled to make ends meet. More than 40 percent of families say they have debt, and nearly 90 percent say they have no savings. Over half the population is thinking of leaving the country at least temporarily, if not permanently.  

When it comes to basic rights, minority religions (that is, anything other than Orthodox Christianity) are seen as a threat, political participation among women is low, while violence levels are astonishingly high, with every second woman having experienced at least one form of violence during her life. Workers have reported to be afraid to join unions due to fears of dismissal, and LGBTQ+ people regularly experience harassment. 

When it comes to children specifically, cases of child marriages, child abuse in boarding schools, and pedophilia, including in the Georgian Orthodox Church, have attracted wide media attention, while being overlooked by the very authorities and far-right groups that claim to be the defenders of children’s rights.  

In this environment, talk about protecting fundamental rights or children’s rights through a queerphobic draft law is cynical, to say the least. Critics of the proposed constitutional changes say that GD is merely pandering to its base, aiming to solidify its electoral standing ahead of parliamentary elections in the fall. Likewise, they point out that Georgian Dream’s foreign agents bill is a copycat version of legislation introduced in Russia that the Kremlin used to stamp out dissent. 

Framing exclusion in human rights terms is nothing new, especially given the steady right-wing drift of the Georgian Dream coalition over the past few years. 

This trend started back in 2017, when the ruling party adopted constitutional amendments that, among other things, changed the definition of marriage from a union of spouses with “equal rights and free will” to “a union between a man and a woman.” In effect, this implemented a backhanded ban on same-sex marriage.  

In the years that followed, GD shifted more and more towards the right. This shift was most evident in its queerphobic rhetoric, which is hardly surprising. Anti-LGBTQ+ positions are the most salient issue of the Georgian far right, and a topic most conservative voters can be mobilized around.  

The GD has learned that whenever its support dwindles, it can always scapegoat LGBTQ+ people, as it did when attacking McDonalds for “LGBT propaganda” via Happy Meals, or when criticizing the Sulakauri publishing house for forcing “promiscuity” on children via its Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, or in its numerous statements against Tbilisi Pride.  

In May 2023, then-Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili embraced queerphobic rhetoric during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest that gathered far-right and anti-gender actors from Hungary and beyond, something he was praised for by Georgian far-right groups. 

The efforts to change the constitution is a continuation of this far-right streak, and another example of GD coopting far-right ideas for short-term gain in an election year.  

Like the content of the draft changes, the strategy is also hardly innovative. In fragile democracies like Georgia, mainstream political parties often absorb far-right agendas to attract voters. And this strategy often works, as the example of Hungary has so clearly shown.  

As repetitive, unoriginal, and foreseeable as it may be, the strategy of absorbing anti-LGBTQ+ far-right ideas not only works, but is also dangerous, especially in countries like Georgia, where the state of democracy is the most fragile.  

What it shows is that although far-right groups themselves often attract more attention due to their violence or explicitly discriminatory statements, what really pushes fragile democracies towards authoritarianism is not the far right, but mainstream actors who don’t want to give up power.