LGBT-free zones (Polish: Strefy wolne od LGBT)^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} were municipalities and regions of Poland that have declared themselves unwelcoming of LGBT rights,^[10][11] in order to ban equality marches and other LGBT events.^[4][12][13] By June 2020, some 100 municipalities (map)^[2] and five voivodeships, encompassing a third of the country, had adopted resolutions which have been characterized as "LGBT-free zones".^[14][15] On the 6th February 2024 Warsaw Voivodship Administrative Court repealed the last "LGBT-free zone" in Poland.^[16]

Most of the adopted resolutions were lobbied for by an ultra-conservative^[17][18] Catholic organisation, Ordo Iuris.^[19][20] While unenforceable and primarily symbolic, the declarations represent an attempt to stigmatize LGBT people.^[21][22] The Economist considers the zones "a legally meaningless gimmick with the practical effect of declaring open season on gay people".^[23] In a December 2020 report, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights stated that "Far from being merely words on paper, these declarations and charters directly impact the lives of LGBTI people in Poland."^[24] Supporters argue that the zones defend traditional family values, while opponents argue that the zones undermine the rights of LGBT people.^[25]

On 18 December 2019, the European Parliament voted, 463 to 107, to condemn the more than 80 such zones in Poland.^[4][12][13] In September 2021, four of the voivodeships withdrew the measures, after the EU threatened to withhold funding.^[26][27] Poland's Human Rights Ombudsman challenged several LGBT-free zone resolutions. In July 2020, the voivodeship administrative courts in Gliwice and Radom ruled that the "LGBT ideology free zones" established by the local authorities in Istebna and Klwów gminas respectively are null and void, stressing that they violate the constitution and are discriminatory against members of the LGBT community living in those counties.^[28][29] In August and September of the same year, the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Lublin and Voivodeship Administrative Court in Kielce respectively issued similar judgements on LGBT-Free Zones.^[30][31] Following appeal of the decisions, the Supreme Administrative Court would agree with the decisions of the four aforementioned courts in June 2022.^{[32][33][34][35][36][37]}

Since July 2020, the European Union has denied funding from the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund to municipalities that have adopted "LGBT-free" declarations, which are in violation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.^[38] Poland is the only member state to have an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which it had signed upon its accession to the EU in 2004. In addition, several European sister cities have frozen their partnerships with the Polish municipalities in question.^[39] Due to their violation of European law, including Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, these zones are considered part of the Polish rule-of-law crisis.^[40]

In February 2019, Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafał Trzaskowski signed a declaration supporting LGBTQ rights,^[22][41][42] and announced his intention to follow World Health Organization guidelines and integrate LGBT issues into the Warsaw school system sex education curricula.^[22] Law and Justice (PiS) politicians objected to the program saying it would sexualize children.^[43] PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński responded to the declaration, calling LGBT rights "an import" that threatens Poland.^[44]

According to The Daily Telegraph, the declaration "enraged and galvanized" conservative politicians and conservative media in Poland, the "LGBT-free zone" declarations emerging as a reaction to the Warsaw declaration. The British newspaper further argues that the conservative establishment is fearful of a liberal transition that may erode the Catholic Church's power in Poland like the transition around the Irish Church. Decreasing Church attendance, rising secularization, and sexual abuse scandals have put pressure on the conservative position.^[22]

Two weeks prior to the 2019 European Parliament election, a documentary on child sex abuse in the Church, was released online.^[42] It was expected to hurt the Church-aligned PiS electorally, and was responded to by PiS leader Kaczyński speaking heatedly of the Polish nation and children as "being under attack by deviant foreign ideas", which led conservative voters to rally around PiS.^[42] According to feminist scholar Agnieszka Graff, "The attack on LGBT was triggered by the [Warsaw] Declaration, but that was just a welcome excuse", as PiS sought to woo the rural-traditional demographic and needed a scapegoat to replace migrants.^[42]

In the run-up to the 13 October 2019 Polish parliamentary election, the Law and Justice party focused on countering "LGBT ideology".^[45] In 2019, it rebuked the Warsaw mayor's pro-LGBTQ declaration as "an attack on the family and children" and stated that LGBTQ was an "imported" ideology.^[22]

In August 2019, the Archbishop of Kraków, Marek Jędraszewski, said "LGBT ideology" was like a "rainbow plague" in a sermon commemorating the Warsaw uprising.^[46][47][48] Not long after, a drag queen simulated Jędraszewski's murder on stage, stirring controversy.^[49]

As of 2019^[update], being openly gay in Poland's small towns and rural areas "[takes] increasing physical and mental fortitude" due to the efforts of Polish authorities and the Catholic Church, according to The Daily Telegraph.^[22] Public perception, however, has been becoming more tolerant of gay people.^[22][43] The 41 percent of Poles surveyed in 2001 stating that "being gay wasn't normal and shouldn't be tolerated" dropped to 24 percent in 2017, and the 5 percent who said "being gay was normal" in 2001 had grown to 16 percent in 2017.^[43]

Anti-LGBT resolutions were passed by some Polish gminas (municipalities),^[45][21] powiats (counties),^[50] and voivodeships (provinces)^[22] who declared themselves free from “LGBT ideology” in reaction to the Warsaw Declaration.^[51][52] While unenforceable, activists say the declared zones represent attempts to exclude the LGBT community^[21][22] and called the declarations "a statement saying that a specific kind of people is not welcome there."^[21]

The two documents declared by municipalities were a "Local Government Charter of The Rights of The Family",^[53] and a "Resolution against LGBT ideology". Both of these documents were labelled in media as "declarations of LGBT-free zones",^[54] but neither of them actually contain a statement of exclusion of LGBT people from any territory, activities or rights. The "Charter of Family Rights" focuses on family values in social policies and only refers to LGBT rights indirectly, such as by defining marriage as a relationship "between a man and a woman". The "Resolution against LGBT ideology" opposes an "ideology of the LGBT movement" and introducing sex education in line with WHO education standards and condemns political correctness.^[55] An interactive map of Poland marking all municipalities which accepted either one or both of these resolutions, with links to their original texts, is available online, under the titles "Atlas of Hate".^[56][2]

As of August 2019^[update], around 30 different local governments have accepted such resolutions, including four voivodeships in the south-east of the country:^{[45][57][58][50]} Lesser Poland, Podkarpackie, Świętokrzyskie, and Lublin.^[57] The four Voivodeships form the "historically conservative" part of Poland.^[21]

As of February 2020^[update], local governments controlling a third of Poland officially declared themselves as "against "LGBT ideology" or passed “pro-family” Charters, pledging to refrain from encouraging tolerance or funding NGOs working for LGBT rights.^[59][60]

In July 2019, the conservative Gazeta Polska newspaper issued "LGBT-free zone" stickers to readers.^[128] The Polish opposition and diplomats, including US ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher, condemned the stickers.^[51][129] Gazeta Polska editor in chief Tomasz Sakiewicz replied to the criticism with: "what is happening is the best evidence that LGBT is a totalitarian ideology".^[129]

The Warsaw district court ordered that distribution of the stickers should halt pending the resolution of a court case.^[130] Gazeta Polska's editor dismissed the ruling saying it was "fake news" and censorship, and that the paper would continue distributing the stickers.^[131] Gazeta Polska continued distribution of the stickers, but modified the decal to read "LGBT Ideology-Free Zone".^[130]

Poland's Campaign Against Homophobia responded by issuing 5,000 "hate-free zone" stickers distributed in gay magazine Replika.^[127] In July, Polish media chain Empik, the country's largest, refused to stock Gazeta Polska after it issued the stickers.^[48] In August 2019, a show organized by the Gazeta Polska Community of America scheduled for October 24 in Carnegie Hall in New York was cancelled after complaints of anti-LGBT ties led to artists pulling out of the show.^[132][133]

In early 2020, Polish LGBT activist Bartosz Staszewski travelled to municipalities that had said they are free from what they referred to as "LGBT ideology" to undertake what he said was a performance art project.^[134] He affixed his own yellow street signs saying "LGBT-FREE ZONE" at the entrance to the municipalities, and posted photos of them to social media.^[134]

The signs were so convincing that MEP Guy Verhofstadt responded by denouncing what he had mistaken for official street signage.^[135] Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki described the signs as a "hoax" that had caused people to believe Poland was violating human rights, and Staszewski has been sued by at least two of the towns.^[134][136] Staszewski described his work as "a symbolic response to the symbolic resolutions".^[135]

In a debate between Polish conservative Witold Waszczykowski and German liberal Alexander Graf Lambsdorff published in Zeit Online, Waszczykowski attributed the concept of the "LGBT-free zone" to the activism. He said: "There are no "LGBT-free zones" in Poland. This is a provocation created by activists. They travel from town to town, put up these signs reading "LGBT-free zone," take pictures and circulate them on social media.^[137] Zeit replied: "Indeed, there is no "LGBT-free zone" by definition, but there are more than 80 county, city and regional councils that have adopted so-called family charters. In many cases these charters say that there should be no propaganda of a so-called "LGBT ideology" and they also state that "LGBT ideology" contradicts Christian values."^[137]

In Rzeszów, after LGBT activists submitted a request to hold an equality march for gay rights in June 2019, PiS councillors drafted a resolution to make Rzeszów an "LGBT-free zone" as well as outlaw the event itself.^[42] Some 29 requests for counter-demonstrations reached city hall, which led mayor Tadeusz Ferenc, of the opposition Democratic Left Alliance, to ban the march due to security concerns.^[42] When the ban was then overturned by a court ruling,^[42] PiS councillors put forward a resolution outlawing "LGBT ideology", which was defeated by two votes.^[42]

Following the violent events in the first Białystok equality march^[21][138] and the Gazeta Polska stickers a demonstration for tolerance was held in Gdańsk^[139] on 23 July 2019, with the slogan "zone free of zones" (Polish: Strefa wolna od stref).^{[140][141][142]} In Szczecin a demonstration under the slogan of "hate-free zone" (Polish: Strefa wolna od nienawiści) took place,^[142][143] and in Łódź left-wing politicians handed out "hate-free zone" stickers.^[142][144]

According to a December 2020 report by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights:

Far from being merely words on paper, these declarations and charters directly impact the lives of LGBTI people in Poland. The Commissioner has heard testimonies about the chilling effect of these documents on residents and institutions, who are increasingly reluctant to be associated with any activity related to the human rights of LGBTI people for fear of reprisals or loss of funds. The Commissioner was told that some media outlets which have reported on these documents have been targeted by legal action, leading some of them to exercise self-censorship. She has also been told about cases of LGBTI residents being refused services by local businesses (e.g. a pharmacy) or organisations being denied the opportunity to hold LGBTI awareness-raising events. Activists working to denounce such declarations have also been subjected to specious lawsuits filed by local governments or conservative organisations and a smear campaign labelling them as liars for using creative advocacy tools, the clear intention being to intimidate and silence them. The Commissioner has received reports of many LGBTI people being shunned by fellow residents.^[24]