“Keep your hands off our children.”

A discourse analytical case study on the social perception of gender education for children in Hungary

Abstract

The publication of the first storybook for children about LGBTQ people in the Hungarian language gave rise to controversy. The study seeks to delineate the social perception of Gender Education (GE) for children in Hungary by analyzing the voice of the Hungarian people who showed a genuine interest in the issue. The research draws on the online comments (N=340) which were displayed on the website that shared the official video about the LGBTQ children’s book launch in a five-month period. In the online comments, social normativity was uncovered by using Van Leeuwen’s (2008) taxonomy of discursive (de)legitimation strategies. The findings show that both the supporters and the opponents of GE for children apply a wide variety of discursive constructions of (de)legitimation to express their competing values. However, there is a degree of overlap between the arguments of the two groups, which hold opposing positions with regard to norms.