An Interview with Robert Biedroń, Member of Polish Parliament and Founder of the KPH

Robert Biedroń is a Polish Member of Parliament for Palikot's Movement, a Left party in Poland.  He was the first openly gay Member of Parliament. He was also a founding member of the Campaign Against Homophobia.  Mr. Biedroń was nice enough to sit down and talk to me about his life, the founding of the KPH, and LGBT Poland, both social and political.

With Mr. Biedroń outside the offices of Palikot's Movement

What was it like for you to grow up gay in Poland?

I'm from Southeastern Poland, which is very traditional, very conservative.  I grew up in a town which used to be the capital of the region.  It wasn't a big city, not even a city, it was a town.  It was very difficult to be different in all aspects because of the construction of our society, which is mono-religious, mono-ethnic. We are not used to staying together with other people, people with different skin colors, different than Catholic religion.  I am not even mentioning sexual orientation because in my age it would have been something out of this earth.  I was born in 1976 and when I was growing up the discussion about LGBT didn't exist at all, at all. It was a taboo.

So when I found out that I was gay, it was at the end of primary school, I think, I would only know that there were jokes about faggots, that it's a sin because during the religion lessons in school, the priest mentioned it was a sin.  I would know that my father, when he watched the tv and they would show Pride in Berlin or Paris, he would say faggot and so on.  When we were playing soccer, someone who was playing it bad would be called faggot.  So I would know that it was someone bad, someone who I should not be. I was growing up in this atmosphere of intolerance and hatred against gay people, toward homosexuals.
I thought I was the only one and when I discovered it, I felt, "Shit.  It's really difficult.  I need to change it." And so I tried to change it, and I thought, maybe if I find a girlfriend it will be easier.  Of course it wasn't easier.  Then I thought, maybe I should commit suicide since it's so difficult and I tried to commit suicide but it didn't help, and so I tried to, somehow, understand.  I went to the library and tried to search for it.  I found out it's called a disease, a perversion, a deviation, and I started to read more and more.  I started to search for magazines and books and so on and I started to read and I found out that in Warsaw and bigger cities, there are gay places, there are gay organizations.  I remember I was always dreaming that I would go to Warsaw and I would meet these active organizations.  Of course they were not active at the time but I thought they were.  And I would be not alone there, so I dreamed about that.  It happened one day that I went to Berlin and I met another guy, an LGBT activist, and it helped me a lot to understand my own identity.

But also, when I was passing exams through the university, I met a guy who fell in love with me and there were no mobile phones at this time, so he got my phone number, home phone number, and he called my mother and said that he was in love with me.  My mother didn't understand what it meant and she was in shock.  I think it helped me with coming out because I didn't have to do that because someone did it for me.  Of course it was a terrible situation for me but on another side, my mother and my parents, my brothers and sister, they knew already that I'm gay so it was easy for me.  I could at least feel comfortable with that, and they accepted it.  They used to live in America, in Trenton, New Jersey, and very shortly after that, they went to the US and my mother had a couple of lesbians as friends. She thought they were cool and so she thought, my son is cool too.  I actually never had a problem with my family with that which helped me a lot because without family, without friends, I would not manage.  It was very difficult, especially when I was a gay activist, when I started to get involved.  Without the support of my mother and my father, I would not do that.  It was too difficult.

What do you think has changed since then?  What still needs to be changed?

Everything has changed.  It's another world.

Of course, there is a lot of similarities with those days but in my time, I would not call even one person homosexual, would not have known anyone.Now, where ever I go, people know gay people, and they say, "Oh, we know this person, that person, famous people."  In Poland there are more and more openly gay people. Fortunately, also lesbians, finally.  There is more and more coming out, which helps people, especially if you live in a town like I used to live and you need to face that and you find out you're the only gay in the village.  Then you think, "Oh, there's Biedroń in the Parliament; he is a role model.  There is some famous actor who is gay or a journalist who is lesbian.  It helps people.

I receive a lot of letters from youngsters, almost every day a few.  They write, "I live in this small village and I found out that you're gay.  It helps so much that I feel not alone.  I told my parent.  I told my best friend.  She knows about my homosexuality and it's all because of you, because I know that you're there."  So I would never had had the opportunity to write to anyone.

The internet helps a lot. There are these social networks and portals.  You can find out who is around you.  All this equipment, that I never would have had.  All these people can find each other, even if they live in a small village.  Of course it's still the problem of fear, of intolerance.  How will I be perceived?  So on.  Still, I find out when I travel that many young people provoke the conversation about homosexuality in schools, even though schools do not have this agenda in their cirriculum.  Teachers don't want to talk about it, but students, they provoke, they say, "Hey, we have heard in every school there are gays and lesbians.  Let's discuss it.  We want to know.  Why this transgender Anna Grodzka is in the Parliament?  Who is a transgender?"  They provoke the issue.  It would be unimaginable in my time to have these kinds of things.  People come out, youngsters.  "Why should I hide it?"

Still, there are a lot of problems, but the atmosphere has changed.  The politicians talk differently.  The things they would say a few years ago they would never dare to say anymore.  The social atmosphere, political atmosphere, everything has created another media, another way of perceiving.  I think, in Poland, the attitude about homosexuality has changed so much, so fast.  I'm really proud of it.  When I look at the countries in the region, we are really making huge progress, especially in relation to other Slavic countries.  You go to Lithuania, you go to Ukraine, you go to Slovakia, you have completely different attitudes toward it and I'm very proud of that, that it has changed.  There is still lots to do.  You cannot compare Warsaw to Berlin, but I think we are on the way.

Could you elaborate on the differences between Poland and its neighbors?  What are some of the differences and why do you think these differences developed?

It is very different because of many factors.  We are very different than the Czechs or the Germans who are influenced by Protestants and the Protestant culture is much more open.  We are being regarded as very dominated by the Catholic Church, and I agree fully with that.  This domination is really a problem for the development of the society but the society is also becoming more and more secular so we have people who are becoming skeptical toward the influence of the Church.   This also differs Poland from countries like Russia or Ukraine.  Ukraine, I would say, where maybe now it's changing, but in general, the Church had no such tradition of influencing politics and social life.  In Poland it has a very huge influence.

We are very mono-cultural. This also differs Poland from other countries.  We don't even have different dialects; we all speak the same language.  I will not find out if person is from Gdansk, Krakow, Warsaw, by speaking or looking.  It's not helping us for understanding diversity.

History and tradition.  We were dependent on other countries for a very long time and we have this fear that we will lose this independence.  It's very common with other countries which are shortly independent, but we have this sense that one day someone will come destroy our family, our religion, and we need to preserve it.  The Catholic Church in its role in the tradition and history and remembrance of the past is very, very strong.  You can notice by the celebrations of the uprisings, the independence.  It's celebrated in a very serious way, not as a party.  It's a complex issue but this differs our city from other places.

Poland is also pro-Europe.  We understand that if we are to develop, we need to open.  Polish people travel a lot, so people find out.  In London, in Paris, Madrid, they see all these gays holding hands and they are okay and the family still exists there and they live life.
"Why should I be intolerant?"  People ask themselves.

What prompted you to found the KPH?  What were your goals for it originally?

I was an activist before I founded KPH.  I was engaged at the university where I studied and I found out that the gay milieu is very hidden.  They don't want to come out.  They're very scared of showing their faces, giving their names, going public.  I could not understand it.

My perception was, if we want to change people, we need to go out of the streets and change it.  Shortly after I moved to Warsaw I engaged with Lambda Warszawa.  I thought, this is it.  I want to be there and so on.  Very shortly, they said, "We want to focus on the internal, on psychological help, and we don't want to come out."  We had a lot of debate.  People did not understand at this time that LGBT issues are political issues, that it's not only about giving support to the victims of hate crimes or psychological support, but you need to change society not to have these kinds of problems.  This is a circle.  They come to Lambda because they are treated badly by society not because they are bad people.

I decided that I would establish my own organization, Campaign Against Homophobia, which will be an organization for discussing LGBT issues.  We need to break down stereotypes, we need to show our faces, we need to go in the streets.  We need to talk to society, with the media, because media at this time, they were using terrible language like pedophile.  That's not true, so we need to change it.  I started to engage people and I found out there was plenty of people who think like me.  Of course there were plenty of people who did not think like me and they said, "It's not political.  It's an internal thing.  We should not talk about it."  We started a debate about registered partnerships.  They said, "We don't want any registered partnerships; we just want to be gay and to go to the club and nobody bothers us."  I think it was like the '70s in America.

There were also a lot of people around people who said, "Yes, we're waiting for that!  We want to change society."  So me and some other friends, we were very determines and very lucky that we had a lot of people supporting us.  Shortly after that, gay pride was organized in Warsaw, the registered partnership bill appeared, and so on.  The progress happened very fast.

Today, you can not imagine, all the journalists know that you should go to KPH for resources.  This is a success and it has become one of the most recognizable NGOs in Poland.

What moved you from the KPH into political office?

I was always engaged in politics; the KPH was after that.  I was a part of the Youth Social Democrats.  My parents are Left and so I was always engaged with the Social Democrats.  When I was 17, I joined the Social Democrat faction of the Democratic Left Alliance.  Politics was first in my life.  When I was a kid, I engaged in these kinds of activities.
I always knew that I would be active in politics, like I knew I was gay.  It was normal for me.

If you meet my friends from secondary school, they will tell you, "When we were playing football, Robert was reading all of these serious magazines and newspapers."

Looking at your specific political party, Palikot's Movement identifies as Anti-Clerical.  How do you think the Church influences society and how you think it should be limited?

Because of the tradition and the quantity of the people who are members of the Catholic Church, they have really huge power in the society.  They are very influential, and because of this tradition, they feel responsible for taking part in or even shaping the debate on the so-called moral issues.  One is LGBT issues, but also women's issues, like the right to abortion, and we're one of the most strict in the world on that.

The Church is very influential because many politicians find out that there is a huge influence from the Church on society and they use the Church for this.  In this Parliament, you will find members of the extreme right-wing radio station, which is completely anti-Semitic, homophobic, anti-women's rights.  The others who are more liberal, which doesn't mean they're liberal.  Less radical, maybe.  They will underline their connection to the Catholic Church. They will push their legislation giving more rights to the Church and attend Sunday mass, staying in the first row.

This shows that there is no separation of the Church and State.  We have this law that regulates the relationship between Poland and the Vatican and it's not being respected at all.  There are a lot of rights for the Catholic Church, like the Catholic religion in schools, which costs a lot.  All the priests have to be in the budget.  You have special funds which give money for properties which were taken over by the communists and the Catholic Church says they own them so there were a lot of these issues that they were taking [the land] for nothing or they were getting much more than they should receive and so on.

Members of the Catholic Church very often take their position on the political issues based on the Church.  They fear if they vote for the registered partnerships, they will be excommunicated.  And of course the symbol of that is the Catholic Church cross, which is in our assemblymen, which in a symbolic way, shows the dominance of the Church in our society.

You've spoken about the relationship between women's issues and LGBT issues.  What relationship is there between the women's movement and the LGBT movement?  How can they work together?

There would not be KPH without the women's movement.  The women's groups were very helpful in the beginning with logistical issues and one of the leaders, who is the Deputy Chair of the Polish Parliament now, she was one of the founders of KPH.  They were very supportive and I'm very happy that activists on both sides see that there is one goal and that our problems are similar.  They take part in Pride and we take part in the Warsaw Women's Rights march. There is huge sensitivity from the women's movement on this issue. I would say that it is a really wonderful coexistence.  They live in very difficult circumstances and we live in difficult circumstances so we join forces.

What do you think is most important political issue for the community?

On the legislative position, I would say homophobic and transphobic hate crimes.  Then registered partnerships, then gender reassignment law, and changes in education, school books, text books.  I would say these four are the most important.

More generally I would say sexual education, which does not exist in Poland, so maybe these five would be most important on the agenda for me.

In reading about your assault after the equality parade, I was reminded of the latest assault statistics from the report from the KPH and Lambda Warszawa.  They note that the vast majority, around 90%, of hate crimes go unreported. Why do you think this is and what can be done to change it?

People do not come out, so they are afraid.  Before I met with you, I had a meeting with a young guy who wants to be my assistant.  It appeared that he was several times beaten because he was gay.  Once, he tried to report it.  He said, "I went to the police and the police treated me like a perpetrator.  I had to wait four hours to report it and so I resigned at the end of the day...I would never do it again because I was victimized again; I was treated like a perpetrator.  I did not succeed.  After I was beaten again and again, I would never report it again."  His experience is very typical.  Also, he's openly gay, so he has no problem reporting it, but most people are simply afraid of being outed, so they would excuse the violence.

I remember the day recently when I was beaten and two others were beaten with me.  One guy he reported it, because we asked him to report it.  The other guy, a young guy, said, "What happened? He just beat me."  And I said, "But he beat you.  File a report."  He said, "No, he just beat me. It will happen."  People think this way I think very often.  His parents don't know he's gay.  He's a young kid, so he's afraid at school they'll find out he's gay.  He's afraid of being stigmatized.  This is why people don't do it.  They don't feel safe to do it.  They should, always, but they don't.

It's a big problem and it also doesn't help me as a lawmaker to persuade people that this is a problem because then they say, "Look, we don't have statistics.  People don't do that.  You're cheating us."

Also, a lot of straight people don't understand that people are being beaten because they're gay.  A week ago, I talked to a journalist about what happened to me, and he said, "Come on, he didn't beat you because you're gay.  People are just being beaten because."  This guy beat me because I was gay.  He was extremely homophobic.  I report it every time.  It was not the first time.  People say, "Why does it always happen to you?  We don't hear it from other people."  Well, you don't hear it because they don't report it.

Why do you think Pride is important?

It's very important.  In Poland, we would not have this progress without gay Pride.  What they did is first of all, provoked society to talk about the issue.  We would have a lot of press conferences and activities to talk about the issues and they were very reluctant to talk about it, but when we have gay Pride, all the media is interested in that.  It's in all the news.
A few years ago, the discusion would be a month before and a month after gay Pride.  Not today, because Poland has changed fortunately, for the better, but we would have these discussions on banning Pride and it would be on the cover of a magazine.  This was a very important tool for getting a mainstream debate.

The second point is, it helps people to find out that they are.  They are.  It gives courage.  It gives pride.  It gives the sense of being together, stronger.  The people who are beaten, who are feeling worse, who are feeling like they cannot do a lot of things, they come out on the streets and for a few hours, they feel like straight people feel every day.  I see how it builds them, how it gives them the power to act and it was, it still is, a very important tool.

When I talk to people who say, "I was so afraid to go to Pride, but I went and it helped me at school.  I talked to my parents.  The next time I will bring my parents."  And they do so.

What are you most proud of in your work as an activist and politician?

The change that has been made.  We could go the way other countries go, with the criminalization of gay material and the hatred of people at Pride parades.  We don't have that in Poland.  We made real change in society.  A few years ago, I would not be elected as an openly gay person, and I was elected.  We have an openly transgender Member of Parliament.  Where else in the region would you have this?  It's change.

Thanks so much to Mr. Biedroń for taking the time to meet and talk with me.  I really appreciate his generosity and friendliness, and it was a privilege to be able to speak with him.