Debates on gender, war, and revolution in the Middle East are not new. The question of gender in the region has moved the imaginaries of academics, administrators, policymakers, journalists and activists throughout the decades, if not centuries. There is a similarly vast amount of literature on war and revolution in a region that has often been seen, and continues to be seen, through a lens shaped by a disproportional focus on conflict and violence. Many have brought the two perspectives together, discussing the nexus of gender, war, and revolution in the Middle East. This article is the introduction to a roundtable, which consists of three articles on gender, revolution, and war in Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria and contributes to this long-standing tradition of debates on the topic, offering unique perspectives on an oft-discussed area. Together, the three articles that make up this roundtable stand out for the broad range of their methodological approaches, their challenging of dominant approaches and simplifying binaries, and their efforts to highlight and counter the sidelining of marginalized perspectives.

This article examines the historical evolution of gender concepts in modern Afghanistan, tracing its development from nation-state building in the late nineteenth century through the revolutionary influences of Socialist and Islamist movements, and into the transformations prompted by the U.S. invasion in 2001. While situating the topic within its broader historical framework, the analysis centers on two archetypal figures of iconoclastic women in twentieth-century Afghanistan: those affiliated with communist parties under the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and those associated with Islamist mujahidin groups. Drawing upon the traditional Afghan archetype of the heroic-poet woman, the discussion explores how warfare—both in theory and practice—reconfigured gender identities via a recurring cycle of uneven advancement and regressions. These shifts were driven largely by elite, top-down strategies that positioned urban women as symbolic agents enlisted to fight entrenched gender norms, rather than to transform them through meaningful reform. The article further addresses the roles of migration and regional ideologies in this process, underscoring how such dynamics often disregarded the lived experiences and needs of ordinary Afghan women. This oversight contributed to the rise of novel iterations of the poet-heroine archetype, which paradoxically sought to dismantle conventional notions of femininity. Ultimately, the article advocates for a viable feminist approach in Afghanistan grounded in local histories, geographies, and social realities—moving beyond rigid binary frameworks to achieve genuine relevance and effectiveness.

The Jina uprising, ignited by the state-sanctioned killing of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in September 2022, marked a historic convergence of gender, ethnic, and religious resistance in Iran, particularly in Eastern Kurdistan (also known as Rojhelat or Iranian Kurdistan). Although the movement was initially framed as a feminist revolution, Sunni Muslim clerics and leaders played a pivotal role in shaping its trajectory. This article examines how religious discourse catalyzed and sustained the uprising, challenging conventional secular frames of social movement theory. Sunni-majority Eastern Kurdistan became a hub for both Kurdish nationalist and religious mobilization as clerics leveraged mosques and sermons to amplify the movement’s demands, intertwining gender-based struggles with calls for ethnic and religious recognition. Despite historical restrictions on political organization, networks of Sunni Islamic groups and clerical bodies provided leadership, solidarity, and moral legitimacy to protesters, even as state violence escalated. By contextualizing the Jina uprising within Iran’s Persian Shiʿi nationalist framework, this article demonstrates how religion, often sidelined in analyses of modern uprisings, remains a powerful force of resistance, uniting diverse grievances against multilayered systemic oppression. It also is a reminder of the duality of religion as both a site of state control and a transformative vehicle for recognition and liberation.

This short article explores trans mothering as an embodied practice of popular sovereignty in the context of the Syrian state army. Moving beyond traditional state-centered and militarized masculinities that shape scholarly notions of sovereignty, I demonstrate how trans mothering—embodied through listening, care, and affirmation of fellow soldiers—became a mode of antiwar world-making amid Assad’s counterrevolutionary war. The article centers on the story of Duaa, a trans woman whose gender identity was denied by the Syrian state. Forcibly conscripted and sent to the frontlines in the Damascus suburbs, Duaa developed everyday practices of trans care and support toward fellow soldiers, reorienting military service around mutual support rather than state control. Building on ethnographic research and life history interviews in Lebanon, I engage with Syrian–Palestinian writer Naya Rajab’s approach to trans mothering and Amahl Bishara’s theorization of popular sovereignty as a disruptive force against authoritarian rule. Through this framework, the article illustrates how Duaa’s trans mothering temporarily shifts the army’s hierarchy into acts that nurture mutual care rather than sovereign obedience. Her trans care reimagines sovereignty not necessarily through resistance, but through the everyday reconstitution of state power on state military bases. Finally, the article argues for a reconsideration of popular sovereignty in post-Assad Syria, where massacres and displacement continue to serve as technologies of sovereign rule under Ahmad al-Sharaa.