Jarosław Kaczyński, the head of Poland’s national-conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, has renewed his criticism of the LGBT community in a speech today.
“We don’t want, ladies and gentlemen, a country – and unfortunately such things are already spreading in Poland – where 12-year-old girls declare themselves to be lesbians,” he told a meeting of supporters in the town of Wadowice.
“This is madness, ladies and gentlemen, and this madness must be opposed,” added Kaczyński, who holds no formal role in government but, as PiS chairman, is the country’s de facto leader.
Kaczyński w Wadowicach stwierdził że w Polsce 12 letnie dziewczynki ogłaszają się lesbijkami. Po czym dodał że chwilę wcześniej udzielał wywiadu trzem dziewczynkom i zasugerował że to mogły być lesbijki XD#kaczyński #lgbt pic.twitter.com/cPtSrMGU5Q
— Saakaszi (@Saakaszi) November 12, 2022
Kaczyński went on to criticise the idea that people can declare their own gender. “Everything that is in the genes does not have meaning,” he declared. “That is also madness and it is also reaching Poland.”
He said that already at some Polish universities, if “some boy, two metres tall, 120 kilograms, with a beard, says that he is Zosia [a female name]”, lecturers have to refer to him that way or face “repression”.
“We have to avoid this in Poland, because it destroys the family, it destroys common sense,” said Kaczyński. “It can’t be the case that, because some part of the West fell into this certain state, we have to as well.”
The PiS leader – whose party enjoys good relations with the powerful Catholic church – also repeated his previous declarations that the Christian “system of values has become the only widely known ethical system in Poland”. The alternative to it is “nihilism, barbarism and various forms of savagery”.
Kaczyński also referred back to remarks he made last weekend, when he claimed that Poland’s low fertility rate is caused by young women drinking too much alcohol. That set off a wave of criticism, with many accusing the 73-year-old Kaczyński, who has never been married or had children, of being out of touch.
“I did not want to offend anyone,” said Kaczyński today. “I just wanted to tell the truth about a certain phenomenon. I am in favour of full equality between women and men in all areas of life. But this does not mean that women have to pretend to be men and men to be women.”
Kaczyński and his party have led a long-running campaign against what they call “LGBT ideology”, which is presented as a dangerous set of ideas entering Poland from the West and threatening Polish families, traditions and even the state itself.
Kaczyński had previously declared that “LGBT and gender ideology weakens the West and terrorises people”. He warned that, if Poland allows it to enter, the country will turn into a “Catholic wilderness with rampant LGBT ideology” like Ireland has become.
As a result of such rhetoric, and the limited rights that LGBT people enjoy in Poland, the country has for three years running been ranked as the worst place in the EU for LGBT people by ILGA-Europe, an NGO.
Polish LGBT groups have particularly criticised PiS’s anti-LGBT rhetoric relating to children, which they say worsens mental health problems. Last month, the education minister criticised “irresponsible” principals who had allowed a nationwide LGBT rights day to be held in their schools.
Main image credit: Jakub Porzycki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
