LGBT in Poland: leaving the country as a last resort

The rhetoric of the Polish government against sexual minorities is becoming increasingly harsh, with consequences especially in the conservative south and east. The situation is so repressive that those affected are leaving Poland.

37-year-old Marcin Mernek has lived in Warsaw all his life so far, and recently he and his partner moved to Leipzig. A decision that matured for a long time and was well prepared, as he says. “At first we thought of Berlin. That was the first city we visited. Since then we have probably visited 14 federal states and have been to Germany several times because we loved the people.”

But they also realized how difficult it is to find an apartment in Berlin. “And so we discovered Leipzig for ourselves, one of the few cities in the former East of Germany that is still growing.” Now the IT specialist has arrived with his partner.

“You violate human rights”

In the Polish-language blog “Das neue Leben” (The New Life), Mernek and another emigrant wrote about their experiences of emigrating. He always felt good in Warsaw and never thought about leaving. He had lived with Mariusz in the Zoliborz district for six years. “We have good relations with the landlady and it could have gone on for a long time.” But the moment had come when the PiS party came to power.

Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the whole party proclaimed views that could not be described as homophobic. They violated human rights. “The country’s president thought it was worthwhile to say publicly that we are not people, but an ideology. He does not overlook how many people he is doing,” Mernek writes.

“Dangerous Thoughts”

In fact, in the fight for his ultimately successful re-election in 2020 on a marketplace, Andrzej Duda picked up on a rhetoric of the PiS party known from earlier election campaigns. Accordingly, the ideas of the LGBT movement are dangerous ideas. It is suitable to undermine the existence of families and the best interests of the child in Poland.

LGBT is even more destructive than Bolshevism at the time, claimed Duda. “They try to convince us that it’s about people, but it’s about ideology.”

EU blocks funding

In the meantime, Polish LGBT politics are costing the country dearly. Because dozens of municipalities and districts, especially in the conservative south and east of the country, have passed resolutions hostile to LGBT, the Brussels EU Commission has blocked certain funding for such municipalities and has now initiated general infringement proceedings against the country.

Above all, the external impact of the never-ending campaign against LGBT is noticeable: Poland, generally a relatively tolerant country, appears all over the world as one that wants to shut out sexual minorities. Representatives of the PiS party complain again and again, disinformation made the rounds. Nobody has anything against gays or lesbians, only against “LGBT ideology”.