This special issue examines contemporary anti-gender politics. In what ways can queer-theoretical approaches to anti-gender politics offer meaningful insights into and new perspectives on how to respond to and complicate the analysis of reactionary mobilisations, inside and outside of the academy? Whereas recent years have seen a wealth of scholarly publishing on antigender campaigns, there have been relatively few concerted engagements that seek to analyse such campaigns and their effects through the lens of queer theory itself. This special issue examines contemporary anti-gender politics and contains a number of promising theoretical lenses from sociological, psychoanalytic, queer, trans, gender and feminist scholarship that may contribute to an understanding of their complexities. It offers careful critiques and highlights some of the limitations of existing approaches, including those of one-dimensionality, historical presentism, racism, nationalism and femonationalism.