Saturday 31 July 2021
Poland’s rainbow athletes
Coming-outs anger the president
By Thomas Dudek
Two Polish athletes use the Olympic Games to come out as homosexual. A bold step in a country where anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is part of the repertoire of the national conservatives in power in Poland.
Polish sports fans had to wait until they could celebrate the first medal at these Olympic Games. It wasn’t until Wednesday, the fifth day in Tokyo, that Poland made it onto the podium. The women’s quadruple won silver in an exciting race.
But the jubilation about the sporting success gave way just as quickly as the discussion about the so far poor medal yield. And all because of a few simple greetings during a television interview right after the race. “I greet my girlfriend very much, Julia,” said medalist Katarzyna Zillmann joyfully into the microphone of the state television broadcaster TVP.
What would not have caused a stir here in Germany is, however, a sensation in Poland. Because these greetings to her loved one back home, the canoeist Julia Walczak, were the official coming-out of Zillmann. And not only in front of an audience of millions, but also in front of the cameras of the state TVP. Only last week the state broadcaster separated without notice from a long-time producer of the daily breakfast television program “Pytania Na Sniadanie” because a singer with a rainbow flag around her shoulders appeared on the program. The station management complained that the responsible producer faded in and justified the decision with the claim that the rainbow flag could hurt the feelings of some viewers.
Duda: “It’s an ideology”
It wasn’t the first time TVP made headlines for its stance on the rainbow flag. However, from a political point of view, this is hardly surprising. The national conservatives in power in Poland converted what was once public broadcasting into “national media”, which in everyday life are nothing more than a propaganda tube for the ruling party PiS. And in recent years, the LGBTQ community has become one of the enemies of the PiS.
“They are trying to convince us that they are human beings, but that is an ideology,” said President Andrzej Duda during the presidential campaign last year. Not the only verbal derailment by a national-conservative politician that says a lot about the current mood towards sexual minorities in the neighboring country, where many municipalities dominated by the national-conservatives have declared themselves “LGBTQ ideology-free zones”. These already make up a third of the Polish state territory.
So it is not surprising that many members of the LGBTQ community no longer feel safe in their own home country. The fact that many of them, despite all the hostile rhetoric, have the courage to show themselves publicly and to set an example for tolerance is impressively demonstrated by the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Because in addition to rower Zillmann, sports shooter Aleksandra Jarmolinska made the headlines. The 30-year-old didn’t just wear a rainbow-colored mask at the opening ceremony. In a video released a few days before the start of the games, she announced her homosexuality and announced that she would soon marry her friend abroad. “I love my future wife,” said Jarmolinska.
“A normal family consists of a woman and a man”
How divided the country is on the subject of LGBTQ is shown by the different reactions to the Polish athletes. Sports enthusiast Duda, who is otherwise known for congratulating Polish athletes on Twitter, took 24 hours to congratulate the silver rowers. 24 long hours during which a discussion broke out as to whether the head of state was taking so long because Zillmann had come out as a lesbian. Government-related media tried to ignore the coming-out of the two athletes as best they could. The reactions on the liberal side were reversed.
But the liberal media and fans didn’t necessarily cover themselves with fame either. The reason for this is the windsurfer Zofia Nocit-Klepacka. “Humanly, she is at the very bottom for me,” said Witold Kozakiewicz, Olympic pole vault winner in 1980 and a legend of Polish sport, in an interview these days. Others openly wished the 2012 bronze medalist failure. The reason for this is their ultra-conservative views, which also affect the LGBT community. “A normal family consists of women and men. It is only because of this connection that humanity still exists. But that is not the case with relationships between men and women or women and women,” said Nocit-Klepacka in one of her interviews. Controversial and criticism-worthy statements that made her a heroine of the national conservatives and an enemy of the liberals.
But of all people Nocit-Klepacka and Zillmann, these two different women, set an important example on Friday. Klepacka published a joint photo on Facebook of the two athletes holding each other. “Sport is above all else. Kasia, you and the whole team congratulations on your silver,” wrote Poland’s most successful windsurfer. Conciliatory words that not only show that sport can bring people together, but can also break down prejudices. Or to put it in the words of Zillmann: “Let us all love one another. Let us not decide who someone is allowed to love and who not. Let us keep our eyes open to the needs of other people”.
.