This episode is the second in PRA’s panel discussion series, The First 100 Days of Authoritarian Gains: Key Analysis to Inform Our Resistance. This second part discusses how MAGA weaponizes gender to entrench authoritarianism. Looking at the essential role that anti-LGBTQ, particularly anti-trans organizing and policy and anti-reproductive healthcare access and abortion restriction play in reinforcing authoritarian norms and politics.

Research Analysts, Annie Wilkinson, Chancie Calliham, and Mary Reynolds are joined by reproductive justice movement leader Norbese Flint, for this focused discussion of the ways that gender and bodies are reified restricted and deployed by the U.S. Right to reinforce the cis-hetero Christian patriarchal norms that are essential to the authoritarian state making project both in the United States and abroad.

They conclude their discussion with a clear call to action that defending reproductive and LGBTQ rights and flourishing are essential to the work of resistance and provide key insights into how to do this extraordinarily necessary work. The discussion is inspired by PRAs recent Winter Spring 2025, issue of the Public Eye on gender and authoritarianism.

Resources

• Gardiner, Steven. “Authoritarians Must Break Your Will to Resist — So What Can You Do About It?” Religion Dispatches, 2024.
• Gardiner, Steven, and Tarso Luís Ramos. “Capitol Offenses: January 6th 2021 & The Ongoing Insurrection.” Political Research Associates.
• Political Research Associates. “Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days: Authoritarian Gains and Consolidation.” The Public Eye, 2025.
• Ramos, Tarso Luís, and Kathryn Joyce. “One Year In: A Q&A with Tarso Luís Ramos on Trump’s First Year in Office.” The Public Eye, 2018.
• Wilkinson, Annie, and Mary Reynolds, with Nourbese Flint. “Authoritarianism, Criminalization, and Reproductive Injustice: A Roundtable Discussion.” The Public Eye, 2025.