Since the sex education introduction in the education field globally, there has been continuous disagreement about how sexuality should be approached in schools: promoting abstinence and preparing for family life or providing with specific and accurate information about sex, gender and sexuality. Sex education has evolved from a STI prevention program to discussing complex gender topics. However as in Eastern block of Europe the discussion about sex education started only some time after the collapse of USSR, the Vatican quickly entered the discourse and took a strong lead promoting approach to sexuality from Catholic perspective. Soon after the Vatican created terms “gender theory” and “gender ideology” and they were embraced by right-wing political parties. While disagreements about „gender ideology“ are often seen as a cultural discussion, current research in the field shows that it is mostly a political one. More and more data shows that anti-genderism is not only exploited in right-wing rethorics but anti-genderist narratives are also actively used by Russia in it‘s information politics aimed to cause distrust in the European Union and so to destabilize it. Russia is doing a gendered political performace with ambitions in foreign policy. Since Russia with anti-genderist narratives heavily exploit sexuality theme, this interfaces with implementation of sex education in schools. Whilst anti-genderism is mostly analysed as a political discourse, it impacts an educational discourse too. Sexuality topics are polarizing and there is no common agreement, how should it be viewed and a propagandist is using this preexisting tension. Also as sexuality topics are preloaded with strong emotions: shame, disgust, fear, it is easy to provoke quick and intense reactions in society. The sexual literacy societally is rather low due to cultural stigma and poor or non existant sex education – hence this does not help to critically evaluate false news or news that are trying to manipulate beliefs in target communities. It seems to be evident that in national security and communication fields there is not enough attention given to analyzing sexuality and gender topics as related to Russia‘s propaganda. In this paper I show, why and how a field of sexuality is an extremely fruitful  ground for propagandist to act on. I present the current state of sex education situation in Lithuania, then I move on to the origins of anti-genderism and what is Russia‘s coherence with right-wing political parties rhetoric. Finally I conduct a qualitative content analysis, where I demonstrate, how sex education theme is used in anti-genderist rhetoric and ultimately what is being said about sex education, what meanings are ascribed to it. Evidence based sex education could help build a more critical response from society to anti-genderist narratives that seek to manipulate target communities and destabilize their integrity with EU. Paradoxically, the same anti-genderist narratives are deepening societal polarization over, how sexuality should be approached in schools.     

In theoretical analysis I first explain the situation and problematics of sex education in Lithuania. Then I elaborate literature analysis of anti-genderist rhetoric origins and the way it functions as a right-wing political tool. Finally I present how anti-genderist narratives are both impacted and exploited by Russian propaganda to fulfill its objectives in foreign affairs. Throughout the theoretical analysis I highlight specific instances, revealing how either sex education is used or how sex education is affected by anti-genderism. In empirical part I conduct a small scale qualitative data analysis, where I illustrate, how anti-genderist Russian narratives unfold in Lithuania. In this analysis I examine, how sex education discourse is used and how sex education is portrayed, i.e. what meanings are ascribed to sex education. The analysed data was collected during a second quarantine of COVID-19 in February 2020 which was already lasting more than three months. As the nation was exhausted and response to controversial triggers was generally high – it might have affected the very active engagement of society to the analysed content. I was reached on my personal Facebook account by two posts of a lithuanian politician, where he discusses threats of “genderism“ in Lithuania and schools in Lithuania. In one of the posts he promotes a Youtube video, that as per politician “explains essential threats of convention“ (i.e. Istanbul convention - The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence). One of the Facebook posts reached me because it was sponsored by the author. The gathered data for analysis has reached me during ethnographic encounters without my own intentional and proactive involvement to look for information. Such method to collect data for research analysis resembles the principle of how propaganda spreads: propaganda is “dissolved“ in mass communication media content, actively and intensively spreading simplified deceptive information about events, persons (physical and juridical), actions.“ (EESC, 2017*) The goal of the data analysis is to demonstrate, how anti-genderist narratives interface with sex education discourse. It is crucial to better understand how anti-genderist narratives exploit sex education theme, how sex education is portrayed, what meanings they bring to this discourse and ultimately how they affect sex education discourse. We need to have a clearer picture of this, so that we could understand, how to organize sex education successfully. *Reference provided in 'References' section

The Vatican has created “gender theory“ and “gender ideology“ terms to counter feminist and LGBT rights movements. Right-wing political parties have adopted anti-genderist ideas and turned them into political strategy, that is being observed globally. Anti-genderist Russian propaganda narratives seem to be very similar to right-wing rhetorics, however more research has to be conducted to have a clearer picture of the mechanics of the coherence. Sexuality related themes and sex education are used as a political tool to cause rapid and strong emotions within dissatisfied conservative groups of society in the West. Sex education is often discussed only as a political topic and not as an educational one. Having in mind low sexual literacy of society and propagandistic aim to blurr moral ideals and the concept of truth itself – a wide circle of society is confused about sex education and what is actually being tought in Lithuanian schools. Parents‘ feeling of entitlement to decide, what “values“ they want to teach their children is activated by anti-genderism. Children and young people are portrayed as passive individuals, who have to be protected from “wrong“ knowledge. Children‘s right to knowledge (including sexuality related topics) is not discussed. Sex education is ascribed a role of turning point. If it is implemented – morality in society is to collapse and sodomy to prevail. Sex education is often portrayed as a synonim to LGBT topics and forcing of them to communities. Human rights frame in discussing LGBT is not used, rather LGBT is portrayed as threat to national sovereignity as it treatens national sexual identity. Sex education is presented as demoralising and threatening innocence of children as they are encouraged to have sexual practices and starting from kindergaten are taught to change their gender and experiment with homosexuality.

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