{"id":957686,"date":"2026-05-13T19:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/957686\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T19:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:30:22","slug":"european-commission-says-all-eu-countries-should-ban-conversion-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/957686\/","title":{"rendered":"European Commission says all EU countries should ban conversion therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARSAW, Poland \u2014 Poland\u2019s only openly gay Cabinet minister on Tuesday spoke with the Washington Blade about the fight for LGBTQ rights in his country, Ukraine and U.S. politics.<\/p>\n

Deputy Justice Minister Krzysztof \u015amiszek assumed his post last Dec. 13 after Donald Tusk became prime minister.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Civil Coalition, a group of opposition parties that Tusk\u00a0leads, two months earlier won a majority of seats in the Sejm, the lower house of Poland\u2019s parliament. President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the conservative Law and Justice party who opposes LGBTQ rights, remains in office as part of the governing coalition.<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek, a member of the New Left party, has been a member of the Sejm since 2019.<\/p>\n

He was born Stalow\u0105 Wola, a city in southeastern Poland that is close to the country\u2019s borders with Ukraine and Slovakia. \u015amiszek now represents Wroc\u0142aw, the country\u2019s third largest city that is located in southwestern Poland.<\/p>\n

He is a lawyer who worked for the Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish LGBTQ rights group, for several years before he entered politics. \u015amiszek\u2019s partner is former MP\u00a0Robert Biedro\u0144,<\/a>\u00a0who is now a member of the European Parliament.<\/p>\n

\"\"From left: Polish MEP\u00a0Robert Biedro\u0144\u00a0and Deputy Polish Justice Minister\u00a0Krzysztof \u015amiszek. (Photo courtesy of \u015amiszek\u2019s Instagram page)<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek noted to the Blade during an interview in his office that the Justice Ministry has introduced a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to Poland\u2019s hate speech and hate crimes laws.<\/p>\n

The Council of Ministers, which includes members of Tusk\u2019s Cabinet, is expected to approve the proposal in the coming weeks. \u015amiszek said MPs will support the measure, even though critics say it would limit free speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite natural for us, I would say, to agree on that,\u201d he told the Blade. \u201cWe all witnessed all these statements and horrible actions towards LGBT (people during the previous government.)\u201d<\/p>\n

Duda became Poland\u2019s president in 2015.<\/p>\n

He said before he\u00a0defeated<\/a>\u00a0Warsaw Mayor Rafa\u0142 Trzaskowski in the country\u2019s 2020 presidential election that LGBTQ \u201cideology\u201d is more dangerous than communism. Duda has also claimed LGBTQ Poles are \u201ca threat to the family\u201d and \u201cwant to sexualize children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Polish President\u00a0Andrzej Duda\u00a0(PBS News Hour YouTube screenshot)<\/p>\n

More than 100 municipalities across Poland ahead of the election adopted resolutions that declared themselves \u201cLGBT-free zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Law and Justice Party and Poland\u2019s influential Roman Catholic Church supported them, while the European Union cut funding to municipalities that adopted them. The Warsaw Voivodship Administrative Court on Feb. 6 struck down the country\u2019s final \u201cLGBT-free zone\u201d resolution that Mordy, a town in Siedlce County in eastern Poland that is roughly half way between Warsaw and the Belarusian border, adopted in 2019.<\/p>\n

Tusk has indicated his support of a civil partnership bill, but \u015amiszek conceded it will be a \u201chuge\u201d challenge to secure passage in parliament because it is not an official part of the coalition government\u2019s manifesto.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek noted Poland has dropped its opposition to the case of a transgender man who filed a lawsuit in the European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg after Romania refused to recognize his legal name and gender change that he received in the U.K.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying not only to change the legal situation of LGBTI folks here in this country, but also we are taking a completely new approach, also of Poland, as a member of the European Union,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Justice Ministry last month for the first time with LGBTQ activists.<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek said former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, a member of the right-wing Sovereign Poland party, wrote many of the previous government\u2019s proposals that targeted LGBTQ people and women. \u015amiszek further described the ministry before the current government took office as a \u201cgovernmental center of anti-LGBTI actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a very moving meeting that after eight years of hatred that was produced here in this ministry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek pointed out Duda\u2019s first presidential veto was a bill that would have made the process through which transgender Poles could undergo gender-affirming surgery easier. \u015amiszek said the new government wants \u201cto make the lives of trans people a bit better and bearable in terms of relations with the state and with relations with the administration,\u201d but conceded it \u201cis difficult.\u201d He also said Duda, the Constitutional Tribunal and the Catholic Church remain barriers to the advancement of LGBTQ rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not starting from scratch in terms of new initiatives,\u201d \u015amiszek told the Blade. \u201cWe are getting back to the good solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we are fully aware that there are plenty of conservative anchors and blockages in the institutional architecture,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek also said his sexual orientation is not an issue to Tusk, to his fellow ministers and MPs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t heard any discussion or hesitation about should we have this guy in the ministry or not,\u201d he said. \u201cMy sexual orientation is not an issue at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A picture of Polish-born Pope John Paul II inside St. Catherine of Alexandria Church in Krak\u00f3w, Poland. The Roman Catholic Church remains a powerful institution in Poland. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)<\/p>\n

Poland knows Russia \u2018very well\u2019<\/p>\n

Russia on Feb. 24, 2022, launched its war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek noted upwards of 2 million Ukrainians sought refuge in Poland, and many of them have remained in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolish society passed its exam in terms of humanitarian aid and compassion for those who are victims of this aggressive war of Russia,\u201d said \u015amiszek.<\/p>\n

A Russian missile on Nov. 15, 2022, killed two people in Przewod\u00f3w, a village\u00a0Hrubiesz\u00f3w County<\/a>\u00a0that is on the Ukrainian border. Another Russian missile on March 24 briefly entered Polish airspace near Oserd\u00f3w, a village that is less than five miles away from Przewod\u00f3w.<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek told the Blade he is increasingly concerned the war will spread to the Baltic countries \u2014 Lithuania, which borders Poland, and Latvia and Estonia \u2014 and to Poland itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea also borders Poland.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe are observing now, especially during the last few months, that something is going to happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek acknowledged Ukraine in recent months has suffered setbacks on the battlefield, and the U.S. \u201cis not very open to providing any help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see Trump, what he is saying. You can also see some Western countries that are still hesitating,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a growing, unspoken emotion within Polish society that something is going to happen, the war will knock on our doors soon, in the next couple of years, and we are the second or third target of Putin if he\u2019s not stopped by the united West.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek added Poland knows the Russians \u201cvery well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why this is not something unusual when a Pole thinks about Russians invading our country,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s happened before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tusk and Duda last month met with President Joe Biden at the White House in the hopes that Congress would pass a Ukraine funding bill. \u015amiszek while speaking to the Blade criticized the delay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that they are trying to build their popularity, saying we should not spend billions of dollars for the wars that do not concern us and Russia will never attack us, blah, blah, blah,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a way I do understand this rhetoric, but I don\u2019t understand \u2026 it\u2019s really a short-sighted approach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI really count on changing the approach of the U.S. because this is really a huge threat to world democracy, to human rights and we always perceive the U.S. as a kind of element of guarantees for democracy around the world,\u201d added \u015amiszek. \u201cThis time the U.S. is not passing its exam, especially the conservative part of American politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A Pride commemoration in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 25, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Sphere Women\u2019s Association)<\/p>\n

\u015amiszek said Poland will continue to work with the U.S., regardless of who wins this year\u2019s presidential election. He did, however, express concerns over former President Trump based on his positions on LGBTQ and reproductive rights, his U.S. Supreme Court nominees and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is kind of worrying,\u201d said \u015amiszek. \u201cThis kind of approach to fundamental issues very relevant to the stability of the world is now in the hands of the guy who you cannot predict what his decisions will be when the time comes and it will be a need for taking very serious decisions concerning the stability of the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe portrays himself as quite unstable I would say in terms of values he wants to defend,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARSAW, Poland \u2014 Poland\u2019s only openly gay Cabinet minister on Tuesday spoke with the Washington Blade about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[267428,13598,2000,299,5187,2557,1699,20730,1123,266431],"class_list":{"0":"post-957686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-act-against-conversion-therapy-lgbt","9":"tag-conversion-therapy","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-commission","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-european-parliament","16":"tag-featured","17":"tag-ilga-europe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116568931030472632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}