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Photos: JoAnne Pearce
an activist in 2011, when the left-leaning Movement
Party asked her to enter the political fray.
“Our mission back then was to tell people that
transgender people exist in the world; that they deserve
exactly the same treatment and respect as other
people,” she says.
What resulted was a history-making electoral
victory, and four years as an MP — the first two with
the Movement Party, and when Grodzka felt like she
couldn’t speak independently, ran a second time as an
independent candidate and won again.
The job came with risks. “Now, nobody was
protecting me,” she says. “The press in Poland led a
coordinated attack on me.”
In reflection, she feels she accomplished her mission
to create an environment where trans people could
safely follow their true paths.
“And I think that although there is some oppression,
they are happy.”
Grodzka has now left politics behind. “It changed my
way of life,” she reflects. “But some jobs are done when
they’re done.”
Senator Wells listens to the challenges facing LAMBDA Warsaw.
Recent funding cuts have forced some staff to redirect their salaries
to keep services open.
QUEERMUZEUM
We headed down Marszałkowska Street and entered
a small storefront — one of the world’s only Queer
history museums. The black and white portraits on the
walls look into the camera, into our eyes, revealing the
presence of our borderless, shared Queer nation across
centuries. Guides lead us through hundreds of years of
Queer history in two languages. The English-speaking
guide is introduced as Milosz’s husband, even though
the word can’t legally be applied to their partnership
under the current laws.
Once punishable by burning at the stake, Poland’s
laws regarding homosexuality shifted to imprisonment
when the Orthodox Church was pushed aside as three
conquering nations annexed all of its territory. The Poland
that re-emerged post-annexation kept these laws in place,
but the tone towards Queer life was cautiously tolerant.
Curators show a photo of Delwin Vriend that was donated to
QueerMuzeum by a Torontonian. The Pride vs. Prejudice team
thought they were bringing Delwin’s story to Poland, but he had
beaten them there.
Despite being a fairly progressive culture in the
early 1900s (age of consent laws didn’t discriminate
against same-sex unions, for example) and the
influence of German LGBTQ+ advocate Magnus
Hirschfield, Poland’s early promise was shattered
during Nazi Occupation. The ghost of the Holocaust
looms with memories of lives lost, when millions
of Jewish people and scores of others, including
homosexuals, were deemed as “subhuman,” and
murdered in concentration camps.
In Pride vs. Prejudice, there is a memorable clip
of Lyle Kanee in 1997 when he was speaking to the
Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of the Jewish
Congress of Canada, who acted as one of many
intervenors in the case.
“… it is uncomfortable for the Jewish community
to be distinguished by being granted protection
from discrimination while others who have shared
experiences of victimization are not. Many doors
previously closed to Jews have been opened with the
passage of human rights statutes, but can Jews in good
conscience enter through those doors when other
minorities who have suffered with them are required
to remain behind?”
Liberation from the horrors of war was only for
some. The oppression of sexual and gender minorities
continued post-war, as Soviet rule harshly kept Queer
life in the shadows. When Soviet occupation finally
faded in 1991 and Poland held its first parliamentary
elections since the 1920s, the Catholic Church re-
established its oppressive hold on Poland’s morality.
Doug Stollery and Doug Kerr listen to the history of how the
Holocaust impacted Europe’s LGBTQ+ community during a
tour of QueerMuzeum.
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