Institute for Research on Male Supremacism

21/05/2026

In the wake of the San Diego mosque shooting, we have received requests for our work on anti-feminist conspiracism. The following is an excerpt from the chapter that appears in the book Conspiracy as Genre: Narrative, Power, and Circulation, edited by Cat Tebalbi et al (Bloombury 2025). This excerpt lays out the significance of anti-feminist conspiracism and its relationship to other conspiracy theories.

Authors Alex DiBranco and Megan Kelly are cofounders of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.

In the wake of the San Diego mosque shooting, we have received requests for our work on anti-feminist conspiracism. The following is an excerpt from the chapter that appears in the book Conspiracy as Genre: Narrative, Power, and Circulation , edited by Cat Tebalbi et al (Bloombury 2025). This excer

20/05/2026

Despite extensive misogynist content in the two shooters’ manifestos, discussion of the intersection of male supremacism with xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and white supremacism is sparse in the reporting on yesterday’s tragic shooting at a San Diego mosque.

Note: Typically, IRMS follows the guidelines of No Notoriety , which opposing naming perpetrators of mass violence and thereby giving them the notoriety that they seek. In this post, we have decided to use the names of mass violence perpetrators for clarity in discussing the ideology and infl

19/05/2026

"From the Proud Boys targeting drag queen story hours to US federal campaigns opposing ‘gender ideology,’ transphobic narratives are strategically used as tools for ideological mobilization and recruitment into fascism."

Hear from IRMS mentee Kat Fuller on De/Transition, Disinformation, and Moral Panic this Wednesday.

13/05/2026

Executive Director and Founder Alex DiBranco will be on Zoom for an informal chat tomorrow (May 14) at 4pm PT. Bring questions about male supremacism, IRMS, or our calls for the board of directors and fellowship and mentorship programs.

Register to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Je_dFgcvSF2UM4HnSiZy0Q #/registration

24/04/2026

We've released our new white paper, “The Foundations of Male Supremacism: Dehumanization, Entitlement, and Conspiracism.” This paper, a transnational, multidisciplinary collaboration among eight authors affiliated with IRMS, identifies the core elements of male supremacism as groundwork for research. We discuss biological essentialism, anti-consent ideology, and justification of violence as three core elements of male supremacism that derive from the supremacist belief system of dehumanization and entitlement. The paper finishes with a discussion of conspiracism as a tool for mobilization against advances for equality and justice.

In my first full-time job, I worked on a campaign pushing Facebook to enforce their own policies against violence and hateful content by removing pro-r**e pages from its website. One such page was titled, “Riding your Girlfriend softly, Cause you dont want to wake her up.” CNN recently reported ...

20/01/2026

“I notice overall a lack of references to ‘hate speech’ or a ‘hate crime’ in searching media coverage on the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, which I think goes to a problem we identify in our forthcoming white paper, the ‘invisibility of the universal,’” says IRMS executive director Alex DiBranco, “in which gender-based violence and harassment is so ubiquitous it becomes unseen as an ideological and dehumanizing force. How many times have I been called a ‘f**king bitch’ because I kept walking past a man harassing me on the street from the time I was a teenager? Yet this is rarely acknowledged as hate speech, a slur, or dangerous speech; it’s normalized discourse.”

On January 7th, 2026, an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Good’s murder, and the subsequent violence and dangerous speech from ICE agents and other supremacist actors, represents an intersection of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and racism as these forces are deploy...

16/01/2026

Good’s murder, and the subsequent violence and dangerous speech from ICE agents and other supremacist actors, represents an intersection of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and racism as these forces are deployed to create and uphold an authoritarian state.

In our soon-to-be-released white paper, "Restructuring Thought Around Male Supremacism and Violence Prevention," IRMS identifies the “justification of violence” as core to male supremacism: "Male supremacism is linked to the justification of all kinds of violence, from domestic violence and r**e, to hate crimes against women and LGBTQ+ communities, to mass violence - whether explicitly motivated by misogyny or associated with another ideology."

On January 7th, 2026, an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Good’s murder, and the subsequent violence and dangerous speech from ICE agents and other supremacist actors, represents an intersection of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and racism as these forces are deploy...

04/09/2025

On this day in 2019, IRMS made its initial public debut with a Patreon fundraiser to raise $150/month to support the launch of our website to "provide content on male supremacist ideology and mobilization and highlight fellows who are available to inform media and activists." We're excited to announce that this fall we'll be launching our first impact report, illustrating how much we've accomplished since those first days! Stay tuned over the upcoming months for more posts highlighting our fellows, research, upcoming events, ideas, and more.

creating research on male supremacist ideology and misogynist vi

21/04/2025

Our interdisciplinary virtual conference is held April 24-26, 2025, with panels and discussions from researchers, policy-makers, and activists working at the intersections of supremacist studies, with attendee Q&As for every panel. PLUS: preconference roundtables on April 23.

General registration remains open until the start of the conference on 24th April.

Attendees will have access to panels from a global community of presenters, with presentations running in all time zones across the conference. Live panels will include an opportunity for attendees to ask questions of the panelists.

General Registration OPEN for 2025 Male Supremacism Studies ConferenceMale Supremacism Studies Conference 2025 (MSSC)Registration to attend The Institute for Research on Male Supremacism’s 2025 Male Supremacism Studies Conference is now open!Register here.Our interdisciplinary virtual conference i...

09/12/2024

Alex DiBranco, executive director of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism, said some anti-fascist and gender-focused nonprofits are concerned again about the Trump administration seeking to discredit or even prosecute them by classifying them as far-left domestic terrorist groups.

“When you think about Trump and the way he talks about anti-fascist organizations, it’s very easy to think about him delineating lots of organizations as terrorist-supporting,” DiBranco said.

Based on his first term, researchers expect the next Trump administration to shift the government’s focus from white supremacists and other far-right militants.

05/09/2024

funding grassroots organizations dedicated to changing unjust systems.