TY - CHAP
T1 - Queer in Poland
T2 - Under Construction
AU - Szulc, Lukasz
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Gay men appeared in Poland for the first time in 1989, after the fall of Communism; lesbians always were – and still are – ‘just friends’; trans* people are funny freaks in the entertainment business; and queers... but who are they, anyway? This set of clichés probably reflects accurately the general level of understanding about LGBTQ individuals in Polish society and, in some cases, within the Polish LGBTQ community itself. Poland is a relatively homogeneous and largely conservative country. More than 90 per cent of Polish society shares one race, one nationality, one language and one religion. The influential Polish Roman Catholic Church guards conservative values in the social and political life of the Polish population, including a ban on abortion and support for homophobic politicians. But even then we are not all straight and certainly ‘we are not all homophobes’, in the words of one Polish academic, Agnieszka Graff (2006). Who is queer in Poland then? Where are the queers and how queer are they? In this chapter, I attempt to answer these questions by describing how Polish LGBT individuals have acquired their common identity and politicized their status in the public sphere. I then show how some of them have tried to challenge identity discourse under the influence of queer theory, both practically, in the LGBT movements’ politics, and theoretically, at the universities. I am also going to present some recent debates on sex and sexuality in order to outline the general attitude towards human sexuality in Poland and to describe the politics of the groups that are most interested in it, including the Roman Catholic Church, politicians, LGBT activists and queer theorists.
AB - Gay men appeared in Poland for the first time in 1989, after the fall of Communism; lesbians always were – and still are – ‘just friends’; trans* people are funny freaks in the entertainment business; and queers... but who are they, anyway? This set of clichés probably reflects accurately the general level of understanding about LGBTQ individuals in Polish society and, in some cases, within the Polish LGBTQ community itself. Poland is a relatively homogeneous and largely conservative country. More than 90 per cent of Polish society shares one race, one nationality, one language and one religion. The influential Polish Roman Catholic Church guards conservative values in the social and political life of the Polish population, including a ban on abortion and support for homophobic politicians. But even then we are not all straight and certainly ‘we are not all homophobes’, in the words of one Polish academic, Agnieszka Graff (2006). Who is queer in Poland then? Where are the queers and how queer are they? In this chapter, I attempt to answer these questions by describing how Polish LGBT individuals have acquired their common identity and politicized their status in the public sphere. I then show how some of them have tried to challenge identity discourse under the influence of queer theory, both practically, in the LGBT movements’ politics, and theoretically, at the universities. I am also going to present some recent debates on sex and sexuality in order to outline the general attitude towards human sexuality in Poland and to describe the politics of the groups that are most interested in it, including the Roman Catholic Church, politicians, LGBT activists and queer theorists.
UR - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=ORCID&SrcApp=OrcidOrg&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=WOS_CPL&KeyUT=WOS:000352317700014&KeyUID=WOS:000352317700014
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781409404644
SN - 9781409404651
T3 - Queer Interventions
SP - 159
EP - 172
BT - Queer in Europe
A2 - Downing, Lisa
A2 - Gillett, Robert
PB - Ashgate Publishing
CY - Aldershot
ER -