The Hate Review

Key indicators in 2025: Contamination 2.78 / 4  ·  Impact 2.00 / 4

Over the past twenty-five years, Croatia’s anti-gender movement has evolved from marginal church-led opposition into a densely networked ecosystem combining civil society mobilisation, litigation, transnational coordination and political representation. The founding of Glas roditelja za djecu (GROZD) in 2006 marked a strategic shift, replacing religious condemnation with “parental rights” and “protection of children” framing. The 2013 constitutional referendum on marriage, organised by the newly established initiative U ime obitelji, was the movement’s first major victory and consolidated a replicable template of signature drives, church outreach and constitutional challenges. The 2018 Istanbul Convention campaign mainstreamed “gender ideology” discourse across the political spectrum. Since 2020, courts have repeatedly extended rights for same-sex families, but each advance has generated sharper backlash. The entry of the Homeland Movement into government in 2024 marks the latest phase: for the first time, explicitly anti-gender actors hold formal executive leverage, deepening the movement’s institutional reach without yet triggering the legislative rollbacks seen in comparable Central European contexts.