Gender as a Common Enemy: Grammars of Transpacific Hate Rhetoric in Post-December 3 South Korea

In the periods leading up to martial law and impeachment, both the 10/27 Christian prayer rally and the Lausanne Congress 2024 in Seoul reflected views on gender and sexuality (LGBTQ issues, abortion, and women’s roles in society) that closely align with the global anti-gender movement, as outlined by Judith Butler (2024). Figures such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France, and even Pope Francis have contributed to the rhetoric of a supposed global conspiracy of “gender ideology.” This conspiracy, they claim, threatens to destroy the family, promote pedophilia, and corrupt societal morality, often linking it to the perceived invasion of socialism and atheism.

Yoon Seok-yeol also appears in Butler’s book—not specifically for his stance on gender ideology, but for his comments on gender inequality. While he has not publicly addressed gender fluidity or LGBTQ policies, he has stated that women were never truly unhappy with their subordination. According to him, contemporary complaints about violence, harassment, and unequal pay are influenced by external ideas rather than stemming from genuine domestic issues. Following his election, he predictably moved to dismantle the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, further undermining Korea’s growing feminist movement. Yoon’s framing of feminism and gender theories as foreign influences or Western colonial interventions is not unique to South Korea; similar narratives recur worldwide wherever anti-feminist and anti-gender discourse seeks to reinforce traditional heteropatriarchal norms.

Furthermore, Yoon’s core allies include ultra-conservative evangelical pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon, who has vocally espoused a rigid binary understanding of gender and hostility toward progressive politics. He frames progressive movements—including feminism and LGBTQ rights—as part of a broader ideological threat posed by so-called North Korean and Chinese leftists. His perspective is rooted in evangelical gender norms that trace their origins to the Victorian era’s Protestant Christian particularity, demonstrating the deep entanglement of religious conservatism with South Korea’s contemporary political landscape.

However, South Korean feminist and queer activists have demonstrated striking visibility in anti-martial law protests. In the post-December 3 demonstrations, the overwhelming presence of rainbow flags and the voices of marginalized groups signal a distinct phase in South Korea’s political history as well as its protest culture.

This paper, after first contextualizing gender discourse among evangelical proponents of Yoon, will juxtapose and analyze the affective and aesthetic dimensions of the protest cultures of both anti-Yoon groups of queer/feminist/progressive activists and conservative pro-Yoon political protests. By situating these movements within the broader political ideology and/or theology of each group, this paper highlights the place of gender discourse in contemporary South Korean politics and religion. Using Butler (2024) and William E. Connolly (2008)’s US-based analyses of evangelical conservatism and political discourse as comparative examples, this paper examines the transpacific mutations and intricately connected nodes of religion, militarism, economics, diaspora, race, and their accompanying affects in understanding South Korea’s current political landscape.