Abstract
The paper considers a number of key aspects surrounding the appropriation of the word gender into the Bulgarian language. “Gender theory”, “gender ideology”, “genderism”, “genderization”, “genderette” are only a few of the doublets which have become part of Bulgaria’s political as well as everyday discourses. Our main goal is to analyze the recent developments by which these predominantly pejorative meanings and usages of the word have gained legitimacy, in part, with the aid of the official Bulgarian institutions. To do this, we focus on the definitions of “gender”, which are offered in the recently published “Dictionary of new words in the Bulgarian language (from the first two decades of the 21st century)” under the authority of the Institute for Bulgarian Language at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. To set the context, we begin with an overview of the so-called anti-gender mobilizations. This is followed with an outline of the reception of the concept of “gender” in Bulgaria. Here we focus on two key fields. First, we look at the word’s history within the Bulgarian academic space after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and second – the current political appropriations which fill the term with derogatory meanings. From there we continue with a critical examination of the explanatory-descriptive segments and the accompanying illustrative materials of the dictionary articles related to the word and its derivatives. Our main goal is to follow the shifts of meanings which the concept goes through. To further exemplify this, we draw a comparison with the previous version of the dictionary, which relies on a completely different explanatory strategy.
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Notes
Unlike English, where sex also means intercourse, in Bulgarian the word refers only to the biological identity, determined by the genital sex.
This is far from an isolated situation, as the concept enters the global scene mainly through certain forms of translatability.
For an earlier discussion on this issue see “Ah, this gender! Five opinions on one word” (Stoeva, 2005), where Bulgarian researchers from several academic fields express their views on the matter.
[grampol] or [gram-sex]. From grammatical; polorod.
Род [rod], which also has the meaning of kin.
Another candidate in this translation model is “genre”.
[rodov pol].
[socio-pol].
It is interesting to note that the translation of “Gender Trouble” (2003) relies precisely on this strategy through the introduction of “genus sex”, whose intellectual intentions remain difficult to understand, especially for non-specialists, despite the arrangements and considerations of the publishing team.
https://rm.coe.int/168008482e - last visited on 14.12.2023.
As Emilia Slavova points out, it is precisely the obscurity in the translation of Butler’s concepts that plays a role in the moralizing campaign against the so-called “gender-ideology”. The author herself becomes the protagonist of media articles with a demonizing character and headlines such as “Who is Judith Butler, the lesbian mother of gender ideology and incest?” (https://lupa.bg/news/koya-e-judit-batlar -lesbiykata-maika-na-jendar-ideologiyata-i-kravosmeshenieto_153393news.html, last visited on 14.12.2023).
Regarding the place of anti-gender rhetoric as part of the so-called anti-liberal propaganda in Bulgaria, see Yakimova, 2022.
DECISION No. 15, Constitutional Court of the Republic of Bulgaria, October 26, 2021 (promulgated SG No. 93 of November 9, 2021). https://www.constcourt.bg/bg/Acts/GetHtmlContent/5aca41e4-659e-42dc-80a5-c3f31746898b, last visited on 14.12.2023.
From here on referred to as DN2021.
For more on the Bulgarian anti-gender context see Darakchi, 2019.
From here on referred to as DN2010.
https://www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2021/12/28/4296517_otkude_idvat_novite_dumi_ili_za_buriata_predizvikana/ - last visited on 14.12.2023.
A word utilized mainly by right wing discourses, which combines “pederast” – the most widely used derogative term for homosexual people/men in Bulgarian – and “tolerance”, which, much like gender, in recent years has gone through its own processes of “toxification”.
Used to describe people who are seen as “sympathizers” of George Soros, who is usually placed within the context of various right wing conspiratorial frameworks.
In view of the scope and length of this text, these aspects will not be considered separately. For a detailed examination of public reactions through this prism, which also affects the role of Internet trolls, see Darakchi, 2019.
The dictionary also includes articles on “postgender” (ibid., 237), as well as “transgender” (ibid., 289–290) and its derivatives such as “transgendered”, “transgenderism” and “transgenderness” (ibid., 290). Unfortunately, a detailed analysis cannot be offered here.
https://www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2021/12/28/4296517_otkude_idvat_novite_dumi_ili_za_buriata_predizvikana/ - last visited on 14.12.2023.
Such interpretations run along the lines of the naturalization, not only of human individuality, but of sociality itself.
[genderna].
[gendrska].
[denderisam].
[genderstvo].
Mineva defines such tropes as follows: “We see all the requisites of moral panic – from displacement and exaggeration through prediction (we will have to defend ourselves against the invasion of genderism) to symbolization (concrete facts are transformed into symptoms for large, hidden processes)” (Mineva, 2022).
[genderen].
[genderizatsiya].
[genderizisam].
[genderka].
[genderno].
[genderche].
And although the chosen example appears to be about gender in the (classical) academic sense, the spiral of references in combination with the already described genre strategy, pose to the reader the question of how this fragment should actually be understood.
[genderski].
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The study findings in this work are result supported by the National Programme “Young Scholars and Postdoctoral Fellows 2”, grant session 2022/2023 under the institutional frame of Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”.
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Nencheva, D., Georgiev, D. From Academic Term to Everyday Slur: The Definitions of “Gender” in Two Volumes of the “Dictionary of New Words in the Bulgarian Language”. Sexuality & Culture (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-023-10193-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-023-10193-w