In Defense of the Polish Family: Ethnonationalism and Transphobia in Poland
by Diana Zhou
Overview
This paper contains sensitive topics surrounding gender and sexual discrimination, specifically transphobia.
Gender cannot be defined in strictly binary terms.[1] LGBTIQ+ is an umbrella term for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer individuals.[2] This paper aims to address specifically the discrimination, persecution, and violence against members of the trans community, commonly labeled as transphobia. Like LGBTIQ+, transgender is also an umbrella term. In general, transgender or trans individuals refer to “persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.”[3] More specifically, “gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female or something else; gender expression refers to the way a person communicates gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice or body characteristics.”[4] Transphobia, literally the fear of trans individuals, is an emotional response toward trans individuals.[5] The United Nations Human Rights Office observes that, because of transphobia and political pandering to it, “trans people around the world are subjected to levels of violence and discrimination that offend the human conscience: they are caught in a spiral of exclusion and marginalisation.”[6]
The topic of this paper explores the connection between ethnonationalism and transphobia. Precisely, this paper will trace the origin, context, and language of Poland’s most prominent anti-trans party, the Law and Justice Party (PiS), to argue that the PiS uses ethnonationalism to ostracize the trans population in the name of protecting the Polish nation.
Ethnonationalism
The core idea of ethnonationalism is that members of a nation are part of an extended family united by commonalities - common language, a common faith, and common ethnic ancestry.[7] This self-association evolved into a shared “ethnic consciousness,” a sense of shared identity of descent.[8] The group with the shared ethnic consciousness labels themselves as the “us,” the ethnic in-group. In contrast, the group that doesn’t fit into this in-group becomes the “them,” “stranger,” or out-group.[9] An ethno-state is when the in-group politically organizes themselves into a country. However, when an ethno-state encounters migration, globalization, and the introduction of new norms that do not fit the common schema of this community, whether race, language, or religion, the ethno-state will engage in exclusion of the “stranger” introduced to its society.[10] Hence, a rationale develops for “ethnic purity” or preservation of the in-group against the out-group. [11] Political actors manipulate the xenophobic and reactionary tensions in their interests. Hitler Germany is a famous historical example, where the Nazi party strived to create a German nation-state for only the ethnic Germans, and they sought to exterminate any group that does not fit into the definition of an “ethnic German,” ie. The Jewish people.[12]
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Figure 1: The phrase “Blood and Soil” expresses the Nazi ideology of a racially pure national body (blood) that connects to the homeland (soil).
Picture Link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H1215-503-009,_Walther_Darr%C3%A9_bei_einer_Kundgebung.jpg
Since the early 2000s, there has been a return of ethnonationalism, perpetuated by the far-right political parties, based on concepts of racial descent and ethnic purity, increasingly oriented against the LGBTIQ+ population in political and social contexts.[13] One can understand the attacks on the LGBTIQ+ population in part as a function of the relationship between ethnonationalism and perceptions of the family.
Christian Geulen wrote for the Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte that ethnonationalism persisted in Europe postwar in a gendered context as the preservation of ethnic purity via the “traditional family unit” within the territory of the “homeland.”[14] For Europe, this ethnonationalist view manifests itself in xenophobic policies that aim to protect the homeland from the “strangers” who will contaminate the ethnic purity of the nation, as seen by the anti-refugee rhetoric of the far-right Swedish Democrats, France’s National Front, Italy’s Lega, Austrian FPÖ and the German AfD.
Contemporary ethnonationalism also maintains a strong reactionary component against LGBTIQ+ rights. Brigit Sauer credits these views to the traditional family unit, characterized as the nuclear family, which consists of rigid and binary constructions of the men as the protectors, providers, and leaders and women as the mothers, reproducers, and caretakers.[15] As the family units make up the ethnic purity of the nation, the glorified “fatherland” inextricably ascribes to the same ideas and expectations of gender and sexuality. Thus, sociologist Yasuko Shibata contends that ethnonationalists view the LGBTIQ+ community, because of their different sexual identities, gender orientations, and practices, as a threat – they are the non-members that challenge the ethnonationalists’ “singularly envisioned community of the nation.”[16] Far-right nationalists associate LGBTIQ+ communities with “‘chaos,’ ‘moral decline,’ a troubling version of modernity and, finally, ‘danger to the young generation’” that must be expelled from the nation.[17] As a result, ethnonationalists of the far-right parties actively sought to deprive them of their due rights and recognition as the nation’s constituents.
In particular, trans people are highly vulnerable to this exclusion. Regardless of the type of transgender expression, they all violate ethnonationalist traditional norms of gender identity and gender roles. Konopka (2020), studying the associations between transphobia and key ethnonationalist attitudes, found that “transgender individuals break the traditional social order by acting against the binary view of gender, and they might be perceived as threatening to social order and in-group identity.”[18] Fassinger and Arseneau (2007) and Worthen (2013) ’s research draw on Konopka’s conclusion, affirming that discriminatory attitudes towards trans people are worse than those associated with gay and lesbian people as a result.[19] Thus, the rigid conventional norms and values about appropriate sexual and gender behaviors found in ethnonationalists’ in-group identities are all positive predictors that make transphobic positions on gender identity more probable in countries with far-right ethnonationalism rhetoric.[20]
Poland
Against the increasing rights legislated towards the trans community in broader Europe, far-right ethnonationalists continue to reject trans communities by attacking their legal and civil rights to protect traditional national values. In 2023, Transgender Europe, a trans-right activism organization, and the European Union indicated that Slovakia and Spain sought to outlaw legal gender recognition, eight EU states do not provide asylum protection under EU law, and many still require a mental health diagnosis to access trans-specific healthcare and change legal documents.[21]
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Figure 2: Trans Rights Map from the Transgender Europe and the European Union
Picture Link: https://tgeu.org/trans-rights-map-2023/
Amongst the European countries, Poland stands out with an extremely high, if not the highest, incidence of transphobia. According to the ILGA-Rainbow Europe Index Map 2023, Poland received a score of 15 in gross violations of human rights and discrimination against the LGBTIQ+ community (for comparison, with 100 being complete tolerance of the LGBTIQ+ community, Iceland is at 71, Germany at 57, while Serbia is at 35, and Russia is at 8).[22] For the trans community, Åšwider and Winiewski’s 2017 survey indicated 46.5% claimed that they have experienced unequal treatment in public offices and places, and 78.6% experienced at least one of verbal, physical, or sexually aggressive acts.[23] These levels of prejudice then negatively impact their health and well-being: when asked to evaluate the quality of their life, 42.4% of transgender people assessed it negatively, and about 72% of them admitted considering suicide during the last year.[24]
History
To understand Poland’s ethnonationalist transphobia, one needs to return to the Romanticist period and the construction of its ethno-state. As the 19th-century poets imagined the community that would make up the Polish nation, it was inherently based on the exclusion and scapegoating of the “stranger” and “non-member.”[25] The exclusion of a” stranger” entity became necessary to achieve a” harmonic/organic society free from antagonistic divisions.”[26] The poets and writers of this period vividly depicted the ethnically different, the Jews, or the sexually or mentally different, the homosexuals, as the” others.” [27] Against this backdrop, Polish poets and writers like Zygmunt Krasinski wrote of honorable and courageous Polish heroes who suffered at the hands of the” strangers” when protecting the old values and virtues of the Polish culture and nation.[28] Tactics associated with the writing of the Romanticist period to depict the stranger remains consistent in current rhetoric used to depict the LGBTIQ+ community — depersonalization, pathologization, criminalization, the use of biological metaphors, and metonymies.[29] The strategy of categorizing the LGBTIQ+ community as the” stranger” to Polish society and a threat to Polish traditional values arose in this period.
The rise of transphobia in Poland paralleled the post-socialist societal transformation that came after 1989. During this time, Poland experienced an unprecedented political crisis and radical economic reform.[30] In an attempt to distract its citizens, politicians turned to the writing of the Polish Romanticist period and alienated the sexual and gender minorities as scapegoats.[31] Dubbed the” sexual panic” by Denis Altman, the outburst of homophobia and transphobia following this period of political and social change covered up the realities of the unrest.[32] In defense of traditional Polish values, the threat to the integrity of the Polish nation became the LGBTIQ+ community.
“The Polish Family”
Before further analyzing the ethnonationalist connection between trans people and Poland, the basic premises of traditional Polish values need to be outlined. Polish traditional values largely echo the traditional family values of many other ethnonationalist countries, emphasizing the binary role of men as providers and women as caregivers.[33] Religiosity further compounds this heteronormativity. The 2023 Polish census outlined that 71% of Poles identify as Roman Catholic, leading some to equate being Polish with being Catholic.[34] Furthermore, the Polish church and Polish far-right political parties enjoy a close partnership where they work together as “defenders of Christian values and traditional morality.”[35] The Polish Catholic Church publicly vocalizes that the LGBTIQ+ community “destroys the traditional family and leads to divorce, abortion, sexualization of children, and other negative consequences at the societal and individual levels.”[36] Hence, the anti-LGBTIQ+ campaigns of the Polish far-right always echo the protection of the national, ethnic, and family normativity against the threat of LGBTIQ+ invasion, using nationalistic language such as “Going to War for the Polish Family” that appeared on the election campaign for the far-right League of Polish Families party that ruled Poland for most of the 2000s.[37] A similar campaign slogan reads, “War Against the Deviants, homophobia, and transphobia: the need for “war” to protect the families from the impending threat of the LGBTIQ+ communities. Circling back to the definitions of the nation by Anderson, “traditional family,” “Poles,” and “Catholic” formed the standard that defines the Polish ethnic nation, while the “non-members” became members of the LGBTIQ+ community that taint the purity of the Polish ethnicity.
“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… [this new plague would be] not Marxist, Bolshevik, but born of the same spirit, neo-Marxist. Not red, but rainbow.”
— Marek Jedraszewski, the archbishop of Krakow, on the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.[38]
Transphobia in the PiS
In 2015, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) replaced the League of Polish Families as the dominant right-wing populist and national-conservative party in Poland.[39] It acted as the de facto political proxy for the Polish Catholic Church. It was one of the most influential parties in Poland and had the most effect on anti-LGBTIQ+ legislation and sentiments in Poland.[40] Led by Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS rose to political dominance using ethnonationalist rhetoric, targeting the Muslim refugees as a threat to the Polish nation.[41] Soon after migration fell, Kaczyński found a new political threat for the Polish people in the LGBTIQ+ community, specifically, the trans community.[42]
In the 2018 run-up to the October election, KaczyÅ„ski referred to LGBTIQ+ rights as a “threat” in the devout Catholic country.[43] At this time, The Polish Catholic Church already appointed KaczyÅ„ski as their “speaker.”[44] KaczyÅ„ski even referred to the LGBTIQ+ community as a threat not just to the Polish family or nation but” the entire civilization that is based on Christianity.[45] By aligning trans rights as antithetical to Polish Catholicism, KaczyÅ„ski delineated the trans community as the” stranger” and threat to Polish faith.
KaczyÅ„ski also spoke to supporters that “We must defend ourself against madness, we must defend the family as consisting of a woman, a man, and of course children, if God permits.”[46] This rhetoric of protecting the children came at the same time that KaczyÅ„ski and the PiS began characterizing any education about gender and sexual identity as a “threat to children.” In May 2023, the PiS announced the Education Law Act called “Protect Children, Support Parents,” which would restrict access to gender and sexuality education in schools.[47] In defense of the Education Law Act, the PiS education minister, PrzemysÅ‚aw Czarnek, further characterized gender and sexuality education as “a threat to the morality of children.”[48] Without access to proper education, trans children will not be able to gain adequate knowledge of transitioning and self-identity, which could result in a decrease in physical and mental well-being.[49] Further, the lack of gender education decreases trans peoples’ quality of treatment at medical offices and public spaces as a transphobic mentality persists in society.[50] In its rhetoric, the PiS politicized ethnonationalism to label themselves as the honorable defenders of the Polish family and nation against the “degeneration” of the trans community.
​
Figure 3: “LGBTIQ+-Free” zones at its height
Picture link: https://www.dw.com/en/how-the-eu-can-stop-polands-LGBTIQ+-free-zones/a-55042896
Increasingly, KaczyÅ„ski capitalized on the value of going after the trans community because of their challenge against conventional gender norms. At a rally in Grudziadz in 2022, KaczyÅ„ski mocked gender-affirming language and referred to it as “indecent” and “abnormal.”[51] PiS’s anti-trans rhetoric gained significant foot ground in the religious and rural bases of Poland, resulting in declining rights of the trans community in Poland.[52] In 2020, more than one hundred municipalities the size of Hungary declared themselves LGBTIQ+-free zones.[53] In 2020, the Polish Episcopal Conference recommended counseling centers for conversion therapy.[54] Most recently, from 27 to 29 October 2023, Warsaw held an invite-only Conversion Therapy Conference where delegates discussed conversion therapy techniques, hosting 220 participants from 34 countries.[55] The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, a PiS member, vetoed a parliament-approved transgender recognition bill, forcing trans individuals to go to court before receiving gender-affirming care.[56] Specifically, they must sue their parents for having assigned them the wrong gender at birth.[57] This process provided many loopholes to which the court and parents could deny the trans person their legal gender change at huge costs to the trans person’s finances and emotional health. Beyond the lack of legal and civil rights, trans people in Poland face an alarming amount of violence by the public and authorities. In a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2020, “1 in 5 trans and intersex people were physically or sexually attacked in the five years before the survey, double that of other LGBTIQ+I groups.”[58] In 2023, trans rights came under attack as it became one of the primary targets of PiS’s 2023 parliamentary election. Under PiS’s aggressive campaign, the situation for trans people in Poland worsened.[59] Activists documented violence against the trans community and deteriorating mental health alongside PiS’s trans hate speech. Outspoken trans teenagers vlogged the transphobia they experienced in schools by teachers and peers who refused to accept their transition.[60] For the eight years that PiS dominated Polish politics, they shrewdly utilized ethnonationalist rhetoric that brought irreversible harm to the trans community and its allies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Os3JGETTqE
Documentary Trans At School by teenager Nataniel
Conclusion
Fortunately, despite PiS’s hardline position, Polish society has generally grown more accepting of trans rights, as seen by the number and size of pride events in the country’s centrist and leftist areas. The latest Warsaw Pride Parade was dedicated especially to the trans community in lieu of recent anti-trans rhetoric and policies.
“We were afraid they [the PiS] would target our kids, and we wanted to show that there is nothing to make jokes about” — Agata Misiorna, the mother of a transgender son, spoke at the pride parade on July 17, 2023.[61]
https://youtu.be/197giAj-LX0?si=KDpZeJOsAJ2_0AiH
Parents fight for trans rights in Poland
In the November 2023 parliamentary election, the PiS lost to a centrist bloc led by Donald Tusk after a record number of Poles turned up for the national election.[62] While many members of the LGBTIQ+ community celebrated this change, many others remain skeptical. PiS still is the single party with the most votes in Poland’s parliament.[63] Further, the PiS party president, Andrzej Duda, maintains veto power. Indeed, PiS continues to be a formidable power in Polish politics. However, the new Polish centrist government has proven to take steps towards a democratic, free Poland. One of Tusks’ most bold moves since taking office was to introduce an abortion rights bill during the week of January 24, 2024.[64] Though it may not have enough support, he remarks it as a small step towards rolling back the authoritarian control PiS dictated on the Polish political landscape.[65] Like abortion, the centrist government pledged to improve LGBTIQ+ rights, but the lack of progress or further commitment has been disappointing.[66] Still, LGBTIQ+ activists continue to remain determined to hold the government accountable. In particular, the youth remain hopeful at the turning point of a new Polish transformation.
“I dream that in the next few years…changes will also come to politics and the law, and we will have the chance not only to be proud of who we are but also of the beautiful relationships and marriages that we can build in our state.”
— Grzegorz GarboliÅ„ski, an LGBTIQ+ activist affiliated with the New Left (Nowa Lewica) party that is part of the broader Left (Lewica) alliance that stood in the elections. [67]
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