This week we shared the news about the latest crackdown on the LGBTQ community when the Kremlin in Russia  expanded its ban of “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” from minors to adults, effectively outlawing any public endorsement of LGBTQ+ activities. But for once there is also good news from another country in the Eastern Bloc :  Poland. 

Last Friday ….December 6th ….they opened the doors of QueerMuzeum, in Warsaw, the very first LGBTQ+ Museum in Poland.  It was so overwhelmed with visitors when it opened its doors to the public, with staff saying attendance was beyond anything they could have imagined actually  and they had to limit the number of visitors.  This is great new development as Poland is hardly known for its support of our community, and in fact it scores just 53 per cent in Equaldex’s equality rankings.  (Russia scores just 23%!)

Homosexuality is legal, but Poland does not recognise same-sex marriage or allow same-sex adoption and does not have tough laws have to protect against discrimination.

This exciting new venture was created by Poland’s oldest LGBTQ+ group Lambda Warszawa, and thanks to them the museum offers visitors a look at the country’s queer history, including covert correspondence between activists, as well as photographs and pamphlets. In the archive, which opens at the end of the month, there are a further 100,000 items.

The museum’s director, Krzysztof Kliszczyński, told Queerguru that the opening represented a “milestone in the life of our community”, adding: “We wanted to express an obvious truth: that since there have been people on Polish soil, there have been queer people on Polish soil. Different terms were used but they have always been there.”