On October 6, the Polish Prides Alliance was established in Łódź.
29 groups organizing Equality Marches and Parades from all over Poland will join forces to jointly resist the hate speech spreading towards the LGBTQIA+ community present in the language of public and political debate. Today, the Coalition presented its website and referred to the current situation of the community in Poland.
Our Alliance is a response to the deteriorating situation of LGBTQIA+ people in Poland, who are the target of hate speech by public figures. This fuels physical violence on city streets, drastic examples of which could be observed during the 1st Equality March in Bialystok. Aggression is no longer limited to insults, thrown eggs, bottles and stones, but also takes extreme forms, such as an attempt to carry out a bomb attack during the 2nd Equality March in Lublin.
As noted by Małgorzata Mróz from the Secretariat of the Polish Prides Allaince, president and representative of the Equality Marches in Częstochowa and Gdynia, the situation of non-heteronormative people in Poland is deteriorating every year.
“For the second year in a row, Poland was ranked last among the European Union countries in the ILGA-Europe ranking measuring the level of equality of LGBTI people in Europe. According to research by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, 57% of LGBTQIA people in Poland experience discrimination or persecution due to their non-heteronormative identity. For cities up to 100,000 51.7% of all residents believe that LGBT people are treated worse, and 10.4% have had direct contact with such incidents. – she emphasizes.
In opposition to the growing discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community, Equality Marches propose slogans of acceptance and solidarity. They are also held in medium-sized cities such as Częstochowa.
Therefore, one of the goals of the newly established Pride Alliance is to create substantive and legal support for all those who would like to organize an equality march in their city in the future. The website will also include a guide for participants in equality marches, which includes practical information on how to take care of your own safety during the process. The website is located at www.polishprides.org
Up-to-date and reliable information on all Marches and Parades organized in Poland will also be posted there.
As the representatives of the organizations and informal groups co-creating the Alliance note, the need for joint action and joining forces has long been the expected direction of the development of the marching movement in Poland.
“Unity is one word that comes to mind when thinking about the Pride Alliance. This is a form of support for ourselves, for our allies and for the LGBT+ community itself. We do not know what the future will bring, how our situation will look like in 2 years, but we need to consolidate our actions and show that despite the fact that we are very different and have a diverse path to liberation and equal rights, we want to act together.” – says Kacper Kubiak from the Institute of Equality, organizing the Equality March in Zielona Góra.
The Coalition of Marching Cities was established thanks to a project financed from the Active Citizens – National Fund program from the EEA Grants. It is headed by a seven-member Secretariat.
