DISCRIMINATING/ DISCRIMINATED LGBT IN LESSER POLAND NO ONE’S LAND GRASSROOTS LGBT MOVEMENT IN “neglected” AREAS Cracow, 2018 DISCRIMINATING/ DISCRIMINATED LGBT IN LESSER POLAND NO ONE’S LAND GRASSROOTS LGBT MOVEMENT IN “neglected” AREAS TABLE OF CONTENTS 5 DISCRIMINATING/DISCRIMINATED LGBT IN LESSER POLAND 7 STARTING POINT 9 VOICE OF COMMUNITY 11 THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 15 RECOMMENDATIONS 17 NO ONE’S LAND GRASSROOTS LGBT MOVEMENT IN “NEGLECTED” AREAS 19 WORDS INTO ACTIONS 21 COMMUNITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION 24 ALLIANCES 25 OBSTACLES ON THE ROAD 27 WE ARE HERE 28 ABOUT US 3 DISCRIMINATING/ DISCRIMINATED LGBT IN LESSER POLAND STARTING POINT Are there at all any LGBT people “LGBT people are not visible in our in smaller cities and villages? city”, „This issue does not concern What is their life like, what do they our city” – these are the statements do for living and in their free time? that we have heard repeatedly, How do they connect with each whenever we searched for other? Do they build their own the answers to the questions communities? above. Do they face discrimination? In 2014 and 2015 our Foundation Do public institutions have conducted a project called the knowledge and tools to tackle “Discriminating/Discriminated. homophobia? LGBT in Lesser Poland”. Discrimination for me means a lack of tolerance towards a person or a group of people that have a different sexual orientation, religious beliefs or culture. It is a lack of acceptance of the way I am, just because I am homosexual. Excerpt from an interview with participant of the research 7 It was a human rights monitoring The belief that a gay or a lesbian that aimed to increase from a smaller city has to leave the expertise on tackling it as soon as possible (usually discrimination based on sexual when going to university) is still orientation and gender identity very prevalent. But the question as well as develop common is what if a person cannot migrate standards to counteract it focusing to a bigger city, because e.g. on the local level. We have financial or personal reasons? decided to choose four cities in the What about youth? What about southern Poland in Lesser Poland people that do not want to leave? voivodeship: Tarnów, Oświęcim, Nowy Sącz and Wadowice. “Big city” stereotypes about LGBT community are In Poland the vast majority present and well. However, recently of activities focused on LGBT we can notice progress – more communities still takes place and more LGBT organizations in bigger cities such as Warsaw, want to and start designing their Cracow, Poznań, Wrocław, actions in some smaller cities. Katowice or Gdańsk. 8 VOICE OF COMMUNITY We asked LGBT persons in chosen The most frequent forms of cities about their experiences, discrimination that they faced including those of discrimination, were ridicules, demeaning as well as their needs. gestures, including those of sexual 84% of LGBT people that we nature, derogatory graffiti in have reached during our project public spaces as well as bullying in in Lesser Poland had experienced schools. some kind of discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity within the last 3 years. Diagram 1. Have you experienced discrimination on basis of sexual orientation or gender identity? NIE TAK 9 Diagram 2. What forms of discrimination have you experienced? Primarily they were discriminated One in ten declared that their by their acquaintances – 70%. workplace (both colleagues and Half of them said that their faced bosses) is discriminatory. Over discrimination from strangers. 25% of surveyed persons have More than half (54%) have experienced three or more forms experience discrimination in their of discrimination. school, while every third LGBT person mentions parents, religious As seen, LGBT community not groups or their peer groups. only exists outside of big cities, but feels discriminated, neglected and forgotten as well. 10 THEATRE OF OPERATIONS We have conducted a desk When looking for partners in future research, approached the actions - LGBT allies, we talked representatives of City Councils to organisations working in area to interview them about their of human rights and democracy antidiscrimination work, if they building. consider it an issue or whether they have some tools in use or not. We have conducted media We have also send out requests monitoring focused on how, why for public information to various and what the local media have public institutions and authorities. said about LGBT people. Photo 1. Railway station in Tarnów, by Andrzej Otrębski (CC BY-SA 4.0) INSTITUTIONS on sexual orientation and gender identity e.g.: are there any cases According to local officials of such discrimination in the cities and governments, there is we investigated, is there any data no homophobia or transphobia collected, do the institutions have outside of big cities. How did they the knowledge and tools to react? come up with that conclusion? Because the LGBT community We have issued our queries to city itself is not present, or at least councils in Nowy Sącz, Oświęcim, not visible and therefore its Tarnów and Wadowice, but also problems and needs are to superintendent, labour inspector invisible as well. office, local Police Departments and Police Human Rights Invisibility is encouraged by living Supervisor. Sadly, the outcomes in the closet, the fear of coming were not positive. out, lack of acceptance and support, including psychological Their knowledge about support. Living in hiding makes discrimination of LGBT people and building communities as well as available actions to counteract alliances much harder. unequal treatment based on sexual orientation and gender While doing our research identity, but also propagation of we laid out a couple of questions human rights was rather shallow regarding discrimination based and superficial. 12 During our interviews the topic We analysed local media in some turned out to be incomprehensible of the cities of Lesser Poland in and fairly negligible. terms of presenting the topics of Discrimination? Non-existent, LGBT issues. The public discussion as there are no LGBT people. And about civil partnerships or the those who live there are so hidden proposal of Gender Recognition that their discrimination is not Act, as well as the presence visible. Although, a bright side can of Anna Grodzka and Robert be seen – in some of the cities we Biedroń in the parliament, but managed to contact some officials mostly the discussion about the that notice the need for change term “gender”, which gained the and want to do something about biggest attention in 2015, were also the situation of LGBT persons in present in the local media. It was their surroundings. treated as a news flash, an oddity, regrettably without any context MEDIA or explanation of key terms which demonstrates itself the most in 70% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and the case of unfortunate “gender”. transgender people surveyed wishes that the local media ORGANISATIONS would engage more in their issues, and over 80% expects To get to know and diagnose the that the media would do some local social situation in the four kind of antidiscrimination work. cities in terms of antidiscrimination This shows that LGBT persons are activities, it was necessary to get to aware of the way media speaks know the non-profit organisations about them and through that how working in the region, especially it influences the local community. those that focus on human rights 13 or democracy and civil society A couple of problems were building. It was a key part of this diagnosed: lack of interest, lack research as we needed to learn of engaged civil society, the about the particular situation in struggle to recruit volunteers or which these organisations work, to get funding (the second one how they collaborate with local becoming a bigger issue over governments and if the local the last two years). Nonetheless, community is engaged. Secondly, nongovernmental organisations one of the main aims of the project want to participate in was to get those organisations antidiscrimination work, inclusive interested in antidiscrimination of LGBT community. They want to topics and education including educate themselves and they have sexual orientation and gender built on trust a well-established identity to assess the possibility of position in their local communities. future collaborations. More durable and therefore better are those relationships that sprout from a common energy and joined forces, because one can WORK with an organisation which works in a completely different field, but we communicate with each other perfectly. Excerpt from an interview with participant of the research 14 RECOMMENDATIONS Diagnose and learn about the needs of local LGBT communities and 1 embracE them. Grasp the possibility of taking action, find local leaders 2 and reach out Get AUTHORITIES AND local officials interested in taKING ANTI- 3 discriminatORY ACTIONS, especially those including sexual orientation and gender identity Look for allies within the local communities 4 and non-profit organisations. When planning seminars, workshops or other educational activities TAKE 5 smaller cities into account. 15 NO ONE’S LAND GRASSROOTS LGBT MOVEMENT IN “neglected” AREAS WORDS INTO ACTIONS Bearing in mind the the local communities. We wanted recommendations, we focused to avoid conquer those towns, on taking action for and with the and telling people what and LGBT community. We have also how are they supposed to do. broadened our reach to two more Instead we want to support them, voivodeships, Holy Cross and get them out of their homes, Subcarpathian, as we received empower them and if needed a lot of queries and request from help by being visible ourselves. there. Supplementing the network It is worth remembering established in 2014-2016, that since 2014, when we first at the beginning of 2017 we have started our activities in smaller sent out a survey asking persons cities, the political context to leave their contact details in Poland has dramatically if they are interested in grassroots changed.