Introduction to the special issue on gendered disinformation

ABSTRACT This Special Issue examines gendered disinformation at a critical juncture for gender equality and human rights. As protections for women, LGBT+ people, and gender-diverse communities face systematic challenge and rollback across diverse political contexts, the deliberate spread of false or misleading information that weaponises gender has emerged as a critical mechanism enabling these attacks. Drawing on research from Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the South Caucasus, this collection brings together scholarly analysis and practitioner experience to examine how gendered disinformation operates, who it targets, and what effective responses might look like. The introduction situates gendered disinformation within broader patterns of anti-gender politics and democratic backsliding, reviews core conceptual debates including questions of intentionality and securitisation, identifies empirical gaps in current research, and previews contributions that span computational analysis, qualitative framing studies, feminist security studies critique, regulatory assessment, and counter-disinformation practice. Together, these works demonstrate that gendered disinformation is both more systematic and more consequential than often recognised, exploiting existing structural inequalities whilst serving as a gateway for broader illiberal politics. For gender studies scholars, these findings underscore that the contemporary information environment cannot be treated as peripheral to the field’s core concerns; for disinformation scholars, they demonstrate that gendered disinformation represents a critically important and under examined vector of harm.