Poland’s final anti-LGBTQ+ resolution has been repealed
Poland's anti-LGBTQ+ resolutions had led the country to be ranked the worst country in the EU for LGBTQ+ people for five years
By Gary Grimes
The LGBTQ+ community in Poland is celebrating this week as the last of the country’s local authorities to have an anti-LGBTQ+ resolution has repealed the measure.
Only five years ago over 100 local authorities, accounting for roughly one third of the country, had adopted such archaic resolutions, with some even declaring their regions to be “free from LGBT ideology”.
Most local authorities were bound by what was known as a “charter of family rights”, which supported the idea that marriage should exist only between a man and a woman and pledged to “protect children from moral corruption.”
“A third of Poland has now been declared an ‘LGBT-free zone’, making intolerance official.”
— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) February 26, 2020
Dangerous hatred spreading… https://t.co/i4VbJmo7Rh pic.twitter.com/XT1a4jMsQa
Last Thursday (24 April), at a meeting in county of Łańcut, southeast Poland, councillors voted to repeal its “charter of family rights,” by a vote of 13 to 5.
The local authority noted, however, in a statement released after the meeting that they voted to repeal in order to avoid losing out on EU funding for the county’s only medical centre.
The statement, as translated by Notes From Poland, read: “The [council] is of the view that the over 80,000-strong community of Łańcut county cannot be deprived of benefits resulting from participation in many programmes and grants,” they wrote. It went on to say that the decision “is therefore aimed solely at preventing the exclusion of residents of Łańcut county”.
Poland has been ranked as the worst country in the EU for LGBT+ people for the fifth year in a row https://t.co/5ciljeroir
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 15, 2024
The statement also claimed that the repealed resolution had “not contained any provisions discriminating against any group of people or individuals”.
“It shows that the people or groups criticising the resolution in question probably did not even familiarise themselves with its entire contents,” the statement continued.
The decision to repeal was celebrated by activists such as Paulina Pająk, who was involved in the creation of an online “Atlas of Hate” which tracked Poland’s anti-LGBT resolutions.
“These resolutions were an extreme manifestation of systemic discrimination against LGBTQ+ people” – Paulina Pająk
“Thanks to the efforts of many people, groups and communities, over a hundred discriminatory anti-LGBT resolutions and family charters have disappeared from Poland,” said Pająk in an interview with Polish broadcaster TVN.
“These resolutions were an extreme manifestation of systemic discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.”
Poland had previously been subject to legal proceedings launched against the country by the European Commission in July 2021 due to its anti-LGBTQ+ resolutions, as per Notes From Poland. The Commission argued then that the resolutions “may violate EU law regarding non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation”.
A study released last year showed that suicide attempts in Poland’s anti-LGBTQ+ regions increased by an additional five per 100,000 after the enactment of anti-LGBT+ legislation.