Inside Poland's 'LGBT-Free' Zones | Insider Docs

Narrator: Poland has been dubbed the worst place to live in the European Union if you are LGBTQ+. In recent years, around 100 local authorities across the country have signed declarations against what they call LGBT ideology. In the face of attacks and hostile hate speech, activists continue to fight back. They march in pride events around the country and have even managed to pressure some councils to backtrack on their declarations. Still, much of Poland remains a virtual no-go area. LGBTQ peop

le in Poland told us they now feel more alienated and afraid than ever. The situation is getting only worse and worse. We are basically treated not like human beings. Narrator: In the spring of 2019, the quiet town of Kraśnik in southeast Poland signed a declaration saying that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer undermines traditional values and Polish family life. Jan Albiniak is an elected official in Kraśnik who voted in favor of the declaration against so-called LGBTQ ideolo

gy. Narrator: He believes that pride marches, and even mentioning LGBTQ issues in schools, damages traditional Polish family values. The declarations are not laws, but they send out a clear message to the local LGBTQ community. In Kraśnik, Adam Cezary Gąska flies the only rainbow flag we could find. For him, it's a protest against the town's homophobic stance. But when he put it up in 2020, it soon attracted some unwanted attention. Adam is keeping his flag, as well as his faith in the future.

It has never been easy for LGBTQ people in Poland, which is staunchly conservative and Catholic. But support for LGBTQ rights, and the number of pride marches, has grown steadily over the last 20 years. When the right-wing and euro-skeptic Law and Justice party came to power in 2015, the tone changed. First, they framed migrants as the national threat. But by the 2019 election cycle, they'd switched attention to demonizing the LGBTQ community as a way of rallying voters against a perceived thre

at. Narrator: This is when towns like Kraśnik began signing declarations or adopting so-called "family charters." And in the 2020 presidential runoff, President Andrzej Duda beat the pro-Europe and pro-LGBT-rights mayor of Warsaw with his hard-line stance. One of his main campaign messages: Being gay is, quote, "an ideology worse than communism." Other religious and political leaders have likened it to Nazism or a disease. Miłosz: We are called the rainbow plague. We are basically treated not li

ke human beings, which has even been said, that LGBT is not people -- it's an ideology. Narrator: Also in 2020, 200,000 people signed a petition calling for a ban on all pride marches and delivered it to parliament. And in June 2021, the education minister called an equality parade through Warsaw and insult to public morality, the latest official outcry in one of the most religious countries on the continent. Many fear that the language employed by local councils and central government could be

a precursor for a clampdown on rights -- and even physical violence. While much of Europe is seeing the rise of progressive, inclusive policies around same-sex marriage and adoption, in Poland both are outlawed. And with the help of the right-wing, state-owned media, the notion that being gay or trans is an ideology is gaining traction. In Polish we say that if you throw enough mud on somebody, some of it will stick. You would expect that reasonable people would say, "Well, that's bulls---." But

if you hear this bulls--- all the time, you know, the repeated message all the time saying the same things or the same awful things, some of this will stay in people's heads. Narrator: About 25 kilometers south of Kraśnik is the district of Niedrzwica Duza. The town council here signed a declaration a couple of days before Kraśnik did, in May 2019. Kazimierz Strzelec was stunned. Narrator: Kazimierz has been a devout Catholic all his life. He's also a gay-rights activist and organizes pride eve

nts every year. He says since the polarizing political hate campaigns of the last few years, things have got worse, and now even feels rejected by members of his own church. In 2019, he helped organize the second-ever pride march in the nearby city of Lublin. At the march, police arrested a couple carrying a homemade bomb. Narrator: Equality marches, as they're known in Poland, were banned as recently as 2007. They have become more widespread, with an estimated 25 held across the country in 2019

. But they still face considerable opposition. Kazimierz has particularly strong memories of the first ever march in the northeastern city of Bialystok, which descended into violence in July 2019. Narrator: But the fight back is underway. After towns began signing their declarations in 2019, a group of activists started a campaign of naming and shaming. An online map called the Atlas of Hate pinpoints every place that has signed declarations or so-called family charters, which both claim to want

to halt the spread of LGBT ideology. The map inspired Polish gay-rights activist Bart Staszewski to then put up signs at the entrance to each town declaring them "LGBT-free." Bart: So I created a sign, the "LGBT-free zone" sign that I bring with me to the cities that declare as LGBT-free. I put it there. I invite people who are brave enough to join my project from those cities, the LGBT people, to make a testimonial of how they feel being excluded from the local community. Narrator: And he worr

ies about the future. Bart: The young people are afraid of coming out because the atmosphere is simply homophobic. Those poor kids that are committing suicide because of the homophobia in Poland, because they are just afraid of coming out, because there are families, parents throw them out from the homes because they heard on TV that they are kind of demons, and they are perverts, or whatever. Narrator: Both the map and Bart's guerrilla tactics got international media attention, and the declarat

ions drew a scathing response from the EU. So I want to be crystal clear: LGBTQI-free zones are humanity-free zones, and they have no place in our union. Narrator: Those behind the map were nominated for a prestigious human-rights award from the European Union. Towns highlighted began to pay the price for their homophobia, losing access to European funds. Kraśnik lost millions in grant money from Norway, and was dropped by its twin city in France. Then, in April 2021, Kraśnik backed down and rep

ealed its declaration. In the months that followed, other towns followed suit. But large swathes of the map are still red. And a group of local governments are suing the activists behind the Atlas of Hate for slander. In many countries, younger generations tend to be more progressive. But in Poland, these deeply entrenched beliefs are held by old and young alike. The All-Polish Youth is a far-right nationalist movement here ... Narrator: Miłosz Przepiórkowski runs a charity offering counseling a

nd support for Poland's LGBTQ community. Miłosz: We can only see how devastated they are by the fact that they are not accepted for who they are. So this is very tragic, especially for young people. Narrator: He surveyed 10,000 young LGBTQ people across the country in 2016 together with a consortium of organizations. They found that 70% had suicidal thoughts or were depressed compared to less than half of American LGBTQ+ youth. And almost 70% of LGBTQ people of all ages in Poland had been the fo

cus of homophobic abuse. Miłosz: I think it's very important to show them that they have a place where they can get real support. That there are people who are like them. There are people who can help them. It is a human right to feel protected in their own state, to have this dignity and having the right to marry whenever, who they like. It's not hurting anybody, and they need to state that this is true. We are not hurting anybody. We just demand equality, not the privilege. Narrator: When Kasi

k considers his struggle for equality in Poland, he takes an optimistic view, and an inspirational quote: