Hello my patrons,

I wanted to tell you some things about the Polish project we are working on. I am very inpatient to share the title of the project, but I am not supposed to, until we finish some legal work with it. 

The format of the project is as follows – Rick Burger, my friend who came up with the initial idea, is doing photo-portraits of Polish LGBTIQ activists, and I interview them in order to dig as much information as possible on what’s really going on. We have a few options in mind – this might end up as exhibition(s), may be a book, may be both. Hopefully both, as we really want this thing to reach as many people as possible.

I am very keen to tell you why we decided to start this all and where we are at the moment.

HOW THIS ALL STARTED

So Rick Burger came across some really troubling news from Poland and found out that LGBTIQ people are getting more and more oppressed in polish society. There were many disturbing releases in the media.

We had talks about it, thinking that we want to raise more awareness about this issue and perhaps present it in a sharper artistic way. Then I bumped into this article. We were completely overwhelmed by the truly fascist behaviour of Polish regional governments. 

They actually proclaimed the so called LGBT-free zones, by issuing special resolutions in certain regions of Poland. Here is what such resolutions state 

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The declaration of the City Regional Assembly regarding the introduction of the LGBT ideology to local government communities

The City Regional Assembly express their opposition against the actions intended to promote the ideology of LGBT movements that have been occurring in the public sphere. The aims of this ideology violate the basic rights and liberties guaranteed in acts of international law, contest the values protected by the Polish Constitution, as well as interfere in the autonomy of religious communities.

Recent actions undertaken by representatives of the national as well as local political scene are aimed at causing fundamental changes in social life. These actions are intended to annihilate the values shaped by the Catholic Church, such as: pursuit of the truth, concern for moral development of the young generation, concern over the institution of family and a school based on Christian principles. 

Therefore, having a person’s and a family’s best interest in mind, we declare that: 

– We shall defend our schools and our families against the spread of ideology which stands in opposition to Christian values; 

– We shall not allow to introduce the elements of sexual education based on WHO standards into the Polish system of education;

– We shall not allow for officers of political correctness (the so-called ‘lighthouse keepers) to be installed in schools as it stands in conflict with the law and the good of our children;

– We shall not allow exerting administrative pressure to comply with political correctness (rightly referred to as homopropaganda) in selected professions (teachers, scientists, businessmen, lawyers).

– We declare that the Lublin Regional Assembly, in realising their public duties, shall always be faithful to the national and state tradition, remembering the millennial tradition of Christianity in Poland and the centuries-old commitment of Polish people to freedom.

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I have marked the words with bold font to outline the things and terms that outraged me the most. It shows, in my opinion, how shallow and stupid the right-wing propaganda might be. These resolutions only work as an instrument of fuelling hate inside the society, but of course wouldn’t stand against any reasonable critic of anybody in the know of international law and essential basics of human rights regulations.

Later I will release the text of legal analysis of these resolutions made by dr. Dawid Sześciło (I used Google to translate it, but it’s readable. I put the information together and will issue PDF soon), but to cut the long story short – these legal acts are not really legitimate. Still, they somehow work!

Another thing – completely outrageous! – is that Marek Jedraszewski, the archbishop of Krakow, made the comments during a homily to mark the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.

“We also know that our land is thankfully no longer affected by the red plague (taken to be a reference to communism), which does not mean that there is no new one that wants to control our souls, our hearts and minds,” said Jedraszewski.

(see full text of the article here)

WHAT WE ARE DOING

So now we’re in Warsaw, and we have just started the preparations for our project. I was very lucky to manage to get in touch with this brave young man Bart Staszewski who fights tirelessly against homophobia in Poland (he’s the main character in this story about LGBT-free zones that I mentioned earlier).

And here we are after our long and interesting talk.

During our interview we discussed Bart’s art project, where he wanted to show the absurdity of the so called “LGBT-free zones” by creating the signs and installing them for the photo-shoot in the areas where the above mentioned resolutions have been issued by local authorities. By the way, here is the “Hate Atlas”, an interactive map, where you can see which areas are now declared LGBT-free. I am planning to meet the creator of this project and talk to him as well during one of the next trips to Poland.

We also spoke with Bart about his personal experience of conflicts with local haters and how police reacted to that situations, about the reaction of right-wing governmental structures to his work, and discussed other extremely interesting topics.

And next thing – we are meeting the Warsaw-based organisation called “Campaign against homophobia” to make more portraits and do more interviews. Wish us luck!

I will need some time to make interview transcriptions and process them, but in the next posts expect some excerpts from these talks. I promise it will be interesting. 

And the last, but not the least.

If you are interested in this story and you know others, who might be interested, please invite them to become my patrons. That’s the only way for me to survive now.

THANK YOU!

Gene xxxxxxx