This research examines how anti-gender narratives function within Kenya’s digital media spaces. It asks the key question: How do anti-gender narratives function as a form of power in Kenya’s digital sphere, and how are communities responding to them?
The research employs a mixed-methods approach that includes desk reviews, the scraping of digital data, and focus group discussions with feminist, youth, and digital rights stakeholders. These combined methods enabled the tracing of how anti-gender narratives are created, amplified, timed, and experienced, as well as how those targeted by backlash adapt, resist, and endure.
The findings indicate that anti-gender discourse in Kenya is not evenly spread. It is highly concentrated, emotionally charged, and strategically used. Analysis of 27,022 scraped posts shows that anti-LGBTQ+ content makes up the core of the dataset with Telegram Telegram serving as a key coordination hub. The research notes that emotion and format are vital to the spread of these narratives and that they tend to heighten during specific trigger moments through dense and interconnected actor networks that reinforce each other’s messaging. Further, the research notes that although anti-gender narratives are often portrayed as culturally local, research indicates that many of their terms, frames, and tactics are actually transnational in origin.
The impact of this narrative system goes beyond online discussions. Anti-gender narratives lead to institutional hesitation, semantic confusion, and biased media reporting. At the same time, resistance is active and adaptable. Communities respond through encrypted networks, peer-led safety practices, creative storytelling, and strategic counter-messaging.
© RNW Media & Meza Yetu Collective, 2026
What this research makes clear is that countering anti-gender narratives requires more than reactive messaging. As such, we have developed a a strategic toolkit designed to strengthen the capacity of practitioners interested to navigate Kenya’s rapidly shifting gender discourse and facilitate the design of effective counter-narratives that challenge existing dominant narratives which are harmful to marginalised groups. Review the counter narrative document on https://www.rnw.media/index.php/resources/