Memes, fake news and post-truth or how gender theory becomes a “dangerous ideology”

Abstract

This article is based on and also the result of the thesis named “ How many ‘likes’ do you think this ‘trans’ deserves” The receptivity of transsexuality in digital media -carried out from the year 2015 to 2018, from hidden online immersion in the journalistic portal Globo.com and in two Facebook groups focused on gender issues. The immersive work revealed intense disputes and inflamed opinions around gender issues. The “meme of gender ideology” was a fact in the research which attracted attention, such as the “negationism” and “post-truth” material relating above all to moral issues, ironizing and/or rejecting behavioral changes attributed to government corrupting policies and possibly encouraging a reversal of values. The memes were used as a kind of “ war weapons” against gender theories which converted into “dangerous ideology”. In order to analyze the research findings, theoretical tools from the studies of gender in their post -structuralist form, the queer studies and also contributions from the political sciences were used in this article.