May be A Poland Parliament Transexual Will Teach This Country Not to Oppressed Others That Are Different
'Even Anna Grodzka's opponents admit she is intelligent and respectful. There’s nothing controversial about her politics or persona. The problem they have with her is obviously her sex change.' Photograph: Peter Andrews/Reuters
The Polish MP Anna Grodzka could make history today by becoming the highest-ranking transsexual politician in the world. Grodzka, elected an MP in 2011 on the platform of the liberal Palikot's Movement, has been nominated by her party to become the deputy speaker of Poland's lower house of parliament. A parliamentary majority will now be needed to approve her candidacy. But the idea that a man who underwent a sex-change operation could become one of Poland's top officials has sparked controversy.
Paradoxically, it is a radical rightwing politician who deserves the credit for Grodzka's historic nomination. On 25 January, Poland's parliament rejected a bill officially supported by the ruling Civic Platform party, which sanctioned civil unions. Jarosław Gowin, the justice minister and a leader of the centre-right Civic Platform's conservative faction, led 45 other party MPs in revolt, rejecting the legislation even though the head of his party, prime minister Donald Tusk, supported it.
Gowin and his allies consider civil unions the precursor to gay marriage. But what really sparked outrage in Poland were comments by opposition Law and Justice MP Krystyna Pawłowicz during the debate. Pawłowicz, representing her party, said "society must not provide a sweet life to unstable, barren relationships from which it gains nothing just because people are connected by sex". She described homosexual relations as "hedonistic and auto-destructive for partners and their families".
Soon after, footage emerged of the conservative MP telling her supporters at a meeting that Grodzka "has the face of a boxer" and "it's not enough to stuff yourself with hormones to become a woman". Many Poles were appalled by these comments.
It was in this atmosphere that Janusz Palikot, Grodzka's party boss, proposed her as deputy speaker last week. Now all eyes are on the ruling party. Tusk needs to reverse the damage done to his party in recent weeks. He has always sold Civic Platform as a moderate and modernist party but that image took a hit when his MPs killed the civil unions bill. Tusk also doesn't want Civic Platform to now be perceived as being in the same corner with the likes of Pawłowicz, whose party is vehemently opposed to Grodzka's candidacy. So the ruling party is likely to support Grodzka when push comes to shove.
Unfortunately, hostility towards LGBT rights in Poland is not limited to politicians. A poll last week showed 55% of Poles don't like the idea of Grodzka as deputy speaker. Another survey showed 70% oppose civil unions. Of those, 30% say they see no reason to give homosexuals the possibility of establishing formal relationships while 33% say civil unions would lead to gay people being able to adopt children.
Even Grodzka's party boss, Palikot, is not free from homophobic sentiment. In 2009, he speculated on his blog about the sexual preferences of Jarosław Kaczynski, the conservative Law and Justice leader and identical twin brother of the late president Lech Kaczynski, who never married and has no children. "Is Jarosław Kaczynski a man or a woman?" he asked, adding that "with identical twins, one of them is often a homosexual".
As for Grodzka, even her opponents admit she is intelligent and respectful. There's nothing controversial about her politics or persona. The problem they have with her is obviously her sex change.
As a whole, modern-day Poland is still a conservative, homogenous society, uncomfortable with minorities – be they sexual, ethnic or religious. Ninety-five per cent of Poles are Roman Catholic while less than 0.1% of Poland's inhabitants are non-white. Polish society is used to dealing with people whose physical appearance and world views fall within certain parameters. Difference is sometimes approached with scepticism or even hostility.
A deputy speaker Grodzka could start to change that: it could help open the eyes of some people in this country to the fact that the world is not made up solely of people who look, think and feel like them.
Comments