Polish opposition report museum to prosecutors for selling “child porn” Gender Queer book

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party has reported the Museum of Modern Art (MSN) in Warsaw to prosecutors for the alleged crime of displaying child pornography.

The controversy centres on a graphic novel, Gender Queer: A Memoir by American author Maia Kobabe, that was available for sale in the museum’s bookshop. The same book has also caused controversy in other countries, including the United States and Australia.

“This book contains depictions of a child in situations of a sexual nature,” PiS MP and former justice minister Marcin Warchoł declared at a press conference in parliament. “Such moral corruption of children cannot be allowed.”

“As the PiS parliamentary caucus, we are submitting a notice of the suspicion that a crime has been committed at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, where child pornography has been imported, possessed and presented in a manner accessible to children,” he continued.

“Child pornography includes all content – books, photos, comics – that depict a child in sexually explicit actions, and that is what we have seen at the museum. It is scandalous that such depravity is taking place.”

Kobabe’s book is a memoir about the author’s exploration of gender identity and sexuality. It includes a depiction of Kobabe sexually fantasising as a 14-year-old and also scenes involving masturbation and oral sex.

While the book has been available for sale in Poland since 2021, it came to broadcaster attention last month following a report by right-wing broadcaster Telewizja Republika titled “Depravity at the Museum of Modern Art”.

Republika claimed that the book was for sale in the children’s section of the museum shop. In a statement, MSN said that this is not true. It also noted that only one copy of the book was available in the shop and that it had been purchased by Republika’s journalist.

The publisher of the Polish edition of Kobabe’s book, Centrala, recommends that the book be read by persons aged over 16, reports broadcaster TVN24.

In addition, the Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported that, while the comic book discusses the coming of age of a nonbinary person, the sexual content cited by PiS and Republika TV depicts two adults, not a child, engaging in oral sex.

Republika’s report prompted condemnation from the PiS-backed candidate for this May’s presidential elections, Karol Nawrocki. He shredded a copy of the book’s cover onstage during one of his campaign events.

Nawrocki’s main rival is Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, where MSN is located. Trzaskowski, who is the deputy leader of the centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s main ruling party, has long been supportive of LGBT+ rights.

“Obscene, violent images to be found in Rafał Trzaskowski’s museum,” declared Nawrocki. “Indoctrination and ideology that violates the sensitivity, safety and comfort of the childhood of our children.”

During PiS’s eight years in power, which ended in December 2023, the party led a vocal campaign against what it calls “LGBT ideology” and “gender ideology”.

Partly as a result of such rhetoric, Poland has been ranked the worst country in the European Union for LGBT+ people for the last five years running.

The PO-led government that replaced PiS has promised to improve LGBT+ rights by expanding hate crime laws and introducing same-sex civil partnerships. However, it has yet to pass any such legislation.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Province of British Columbia/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.