Members of the LGBTQ+ community in Poland have felt threatened and outraged ever since President Andrzej Duda was re-elected in July 2020, after defeating Rafal Trzaskowski. His campaign was openly anti-LGBTQ, casting the equal rights movement as a dangerous “ideology” for families in a Roman Catholic country such as Poland. The biggest worry for the community is that discriminatory and prejudicial policies will be increasingly introduced, affecting not only non-heteronormative sexualities, but also other minority groups.

Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and behaviour from the executive body have already empowered homophobic policies. Some municipal authorities, amounting up to a third of the Polish territory, have declared themselves to be LGBTQ-free zones and/or Family-zones. This means that those sites must remain free from any so-called LGBT propaganda, creating a space which is hostile to anyone who deviates from heterosexuality or cisnormativity.

MARGOT’S ARREST AND PROTESTS

On August 7th, Margot Szutowicz, a transgender activist, was taken into custody after she was seen hanging an LGBTQ flag over two statues of religious figures in Warsaw. She was then sentenced to two months in prison. Besides Margot, another forty eight protesters who tried to stop her arrest have been detained by the police and taken into prison.

On August 8th - the day following her detention, in front of the Warsaw Palace of Culture, crowds shouted “free Margot!”, and“the rainbow is not an insult!”. The protest, which was carried out peacefully, also extended a flag of the LGBTQ movement over a statue at the entrance to the Palace.

"We are here to protest the fact that these people have been arrested by the police," Mateusz Wojtowicz, 24, told Reuters.Police began to release protesters detained on Saturday, except for Margot who will be detained for two months, the police said.

Margot is a member of the group “Stop Bzdurom”, which claimed responsibility for covering religious statues around the city with the LGBT flag . The group said that the act aimed to draw attention to the actions of the current government, which put gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people at the center of a hostile public debate during the recent electoral race.

THE RESPONSE

Dunja Mijatovic, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe - a humanitarian defense body in Europe, responded on the day of Margot’s arrest, calling for the activist's immediate release. "The order to detain her for two months sends a scary signal for freedom of expression and LGBT rights in Poland", she said.

Before the protests on August 6 that culminated in the activists' arrest, opposition members of parliament wore outfits in the colors of the LGBTQ+ movement, and formed the LGBTQ flag as they sat. This signalled their position, and demonstrated solidarity with the LGBT community in Poland.

BEYOND POLAND

According to the ILGA (International Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transsexuals and Intersexuals) - the world's largest organization in defense of LGBTQ+ rights, hate speech by political and religious leaders has increased in seventeen countries in Europe. This included Portugal, Spain and Finland, which has generally been known to be welcoming to this community. Homophobic violence as a whole has also grown in the region, according to the study.

The study highlights recent manifestations of this trend. Examples among them are the re-election of the nationalist party governing Poland with its rhetoric against an “LGBT ideology”, statements by the President of the Hungarian Parliament equating adoption by gay couples with pedophilia, and statements by Spanish and Finnish politicians harshly criticizing LGBT Pride Parades in the country.

The rights and victories of the LGBTQ+ community from the past few decades are under threat in multiple parts of the world. This is an important moment to reaffirm their pride, existence, and rights, within every sector of society.