My proposed contribution will aim to challenge the U.S centrism of critiques of area studies and the discussion about the tensions between Middle Eastern Studies and gender and sexuality studies. Neither Middle East Studies as an ‘area’ of study nor feminist and queer studies have solely developed within North American academia. Even within the specific field of Anglo-Saxon scholarship, there exist significantly different trajectories and tensions linked to specific political and discursive contexts. My paper will reflect on the specific tensions emerging out of different European contexts, focusing on German and British academia. Here I will illustrate how specific academic traditions, political relationships with the Middle East and its diasporas, in addition to specific histories of feminist activism shape the discursive spaces we as feminist/Middle East scholars inhabit. Secondly, my paper will attempt to challenge the idea that conservative gender and sexuality discourses emerge mainly in the global south, including the Middle East. Underlying many of the debates and critiques of universalizing human rights discourses, has been the assumption of a purportedly immutable hegemonic liberal order. Yet, whatever its limitations, the assumed liberalism of ‘the West’ is being put to the test by the wave of illiberal right wing populisms sweeping North America and Europe. Re-instating rigid gender (and racial) hierarchies as well as heteronormative ideas about sexuality lies at the heart of these right wing conservatisms. In many countries in both the global south and in Europe, right wing movements have been up in arms against so-called “gender ideology” and have targeted gender studies programs and scholars. My paper will reflect on the question of how can we talk creatively about these new universal and universalizing conservative and right wing ‘anti-gender’ trends without falling into the trap of previous articulations of universal liberalism nor lose track of historical and empirical specificities?