Contents

The interview tells the story of Ray, a transgender and non-binary person and queer activist who has gone through a journey of self-discovery, self-acceptance and struggle for the rights of the queer community. Born in Belarus, Ray struggled with the complexities of its identity in a conservative environment.

After moving to Poland, it was able not only to find itself, but also to actively support others through activism, education, and community service. For security reasons and due to the situation in Belarus, the real name of the hero is not disclosed. Any resemblance to real names is coincidental.

Ray talks about its personal experience of sex education, the influence of religion on the queer community, and romantic relationships, in particular how they are shaped by the Polish context. The text highlights how difficult it can be to have a personal history as a queer person in Poland, especially due to personal danger. Ray shares its thoughts on what it means to be part of the queer community in Europe and how activism can be a tool for support and change.

The material was written in accordance with the recommendations of the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information on writing about non-binary people and the wishes of the hero. In particular, the hero chose the pronouns “it” and the corresponding definitions in the neuter gender.

Identity and origins

When and how did you realize that you are or can be a queer person?

I think it was clear that I could be a queer person when I was, I don’t know, maybe 10 years old. I just realized that I was a little bit different from my classmates, and that, for example, I wasn’t interested in boys (I’m FtN, Female to Non-Binary), and my sexual orientation was more flexible. This was something I hadn’t seen in our lives before, which made me feel very lonely. I think that, at the moment when all people in their teens start falling in love with their friends, classmates, I realized that I could be queer. Then it was just a process of discovering my sexual orientation and then my gender identity.

Did you have sex education? For example, in the public education system or only in your family?

We had no sex education at school. Even in biology classes, for example, pages about the reproductive system were simply skipped. Our teacher at the time said that we didn’t want to learn this subject, we would skip it and move on to something else. But my mom did a good job. She explained everything to me. About sex education, about reproductive health, how it works, about contraception, and so on. My mom is a medical professional, and I think she explained everything to me very well.

So you can’t say that your personal sexual upbringing was conservative?

Yes, it was not like that at all. She had a lot of heteronormative views, but overall she was better than my friends.

How do you identify yourself in a religious context?

My family is not very religious. There is no strong religious identity in Belarus at all. And I think that because of that, and also because I’m a queer person and I think a lot about my identity, I don’t believe in God, in any religious things. I just believe in the universe, you know, that we have some kind of karma and so on, but I don’t believe that we have some kind of higher intelligence that stands above us and plans our lives. So I can say that I am not a religious person.

If we can talk about it, let’s go back to your time in Belarus. When you were there, was it difficult for you to come to terms with your identity and how did you feel there?

In Belarus, I did not feel that my queer identity was so strongly expressed. I just felt very different from other people. I was closed to experiences and I didn’t have any, for example, romantic relationships with other people in Belarus because I didn’t meet queer people around me. So it was a really very sad experience, like I was alone and had no one to talk to about my identity. No one knew I was queer, and I didn’t feel safe saying it out loud.

Now you are in Poland. How did you end up here?

I came to Poland three years ago to study at university. My big dream was to move from Belarus to Europe, because I heard that in Europe the policy towards queer people is much more lenient and you can be a little more open, and the European Union generally supports queer people. They are proud of it, and I was very interested in that. It was the only option for me because I don’t have Polish roots. After high school, I had only one option – university. So I applied to a local Polish university and they said: “Yes, you can come and send me the documents so that I can apply for a visa.”

Life in Poland: religion and community

There is a stereotype about Poland that it is, if not the most, then perhaps one of the most Catholic countries in the world, and of course this affects the perception of the queer movement and queer identity. Did this stereotype bother you before coming to Poland?

It may sound funny, but I hadn’t heard that Poland was a Catholic country before I moved here. Neither in my hometown nor in the other places I lived in Belarus did anyone talk about Poland being a Catholic country on such a large scale. All I knew was that they practiced a different religion than most people in Belarus, and that was it.

So, as soon as I arrived in Poland, the first thing I saw was a church with a big cross shining in the sky. And I thought, “Okay, this is fun.” Our churches look different, but that’s okay. Only after moving to Poland did I realize how important religion is in people’s lives and how much people here believe in God. For me, it was something new.

Have you noticed anything disturbing in this context in the queer community in Poland during your stay here?

The first time I encountered such a bad influence of religion on the perception of queer people was when I went to a local pride parade I helped organize and met a group of anti-pride activists with big billboards… Something anti-LGBTQ. With slogans like “homosexuals corrupt children” and so on. It was my first experience with the Catholic Church in this context. I read in the news that they do something similar, that they have religious lessons in schools about family values. In my school, for example, there were no religious lessons about how to live in a family and so on.

Let’s move a little bit closer to the more romantic context related to this, because this is also an integral part of the whole experience of queer people in Poland. Have you ever looked for a long-term relationship in Poland? If not, is the fear of prejudice or physical violence one of the factors that put you off this idea?

Currently, I am in a long-term relationship and I am dating a man who is from Poland. But our relationship has a purely queer context. My partner is also a queer person. Where did we meet? At a local community center for young queer people. We came there only for workshops and integration meetings, and then we started to be friends. Later, this friendship grew into the romantic relationship I am in now.

I don’t think I was afraid of prejudice or physical violence against me. It could have happened when I was just walking through a local garden with a bag of rainbow colors. I could have heard some bad comments about me, like “what a shitty bag”, that we should leave the garden and go somewhere else with it. But I have never faced any physical violence. I think I try to behave safer, like all people who I think look at least a little bit feminine in Poland. They usually have pepper spray in their pocket if they walk alone at night in dangerous places. I consider myself very lucky in this context.

Coming back to the stereotype about the strong influence of Catholicism on the perception of the queer community in Poland, have you confirmed or denied this stereotype?

I think that religion in general has a pretty strong influence on people’s everyday lives, and in small towns or villages it’s even worse. My partner comes from such a small village, and people there go to church three times a week. The smaller the settlement, the greater the influence of religion, as my own experience in Poland shows. When you meet people from Warsaw, they are not as religious, even if they have some very heteronormative stereotypes and so on. So I can say that I agree with this stereotype. Poland is really a very Catholic country. There are many churches everywhere. This influence is also noticeable, for example, at Christmas. It is very important for Poles, it is in their blood.

However, most of my friends are queer people who are not so much influenced by religion. The queer community here, as in other countries, is more accessible, open and not very religious.

You have already mentioned that in Poland you realized your identity and discovered a lot of new things. Please tell us about how your stay in Poland influenced your personal queer identity.

I think that in Poland I have become more open about my sexual orientation and gender identity. I feel more free. Even though the government is usually not very supportive of queer people, the queer community here is quite strong and really supports me on my journey. This is my life in Poland, and it has had a great impact on my queer identity.

Activism and political change

Tell us a little bit more about your activist work. What exactly do you do?

I conduct trainings on queer issues. I explain to people in the community and allies what gender identity is and what sexual orientations exist. I hold workshops where people can express their queer identity through handicrafts. In my Belarusian activism, I try to be as anonymous as possible. I try to communicate with people, but online. I help to organize thematic events, but from a distance, because I don’t want the Belarusian government to know about it. Because it is very dangerous for me and my family, who now live in Belarus.

Have you ever encountered skepticism or condemnation of the projects you are involved in by local residents or participants?

I try not to read, for example, interviews with right-wing radicals about this or other things, because it has a bad effect on my psyche. But I think that queer people, and even more so trans people in Belarus and Poland, face many such unpleasant situations every day. In big cities, this is a little less because people are more relaxed there, but there are always, for example, football fans who are very aggressive and usually have right-wing political views. They can make aggressive remarks when you are walking down the street, they pick on you, behave inappropriately and throw inappropriate comments. For this reason, people like us try to walk in groups, and we try not to be alone most of the time because it’s not entirely safe, even if you look different than they are used to.

Last year, Poland elected a new government, and many members of the queer community had high hopes for change, as the previous government had a negative attitude toward LGBTQ+ people. More than a year has passed since then. Do you personally see any progress in this context in Poland and what are you doing to make it happen? In general, what do you think about the actions of the current Polish government in this situation?

We can say that there hasn’t been much progress this year because the new government has talked a lot about how it intends to change the policy towards queer people. For example, the approach to same-sex metric sex marriage or documents for transgender people. Instead, there was a lot of talk about the new law on civil partnerships. However, it has little in common with marriage. It is a kind of soft document that simply states that two people are in a civil partnership. There is nothing romantic about it (about feelings between people), and it looks like a partnership, for example, at work. However, marriage equality is also about making it easier to set up joint bank accounts. It’s also about making it easier to pick up your partner’s child from kindergarten.

These are, you know, little things that matter in the everyday life of queer people who want to enter into a civil partnership with a person of the same metric sex or something like that.

The only thing I know that Poland is doing right is the accelerated procedure for changing the gender designation in documents. Previously, people had to wait two or three years to change their gender in documents, and the legal process was terribly long and tedious, and now it’s a matter of a few months.

You can see that some people can change their gender identification in five months, which is a big difference compared to the previous two years. So we see that something has changed, but we don’t think the new government will do much.

During elections, they talk about many things and make many promises to encourage queer people to vote for them. For example, the Lewica political party talks about same-sex partnerships and how it will be like same-sex marriage… that it will be almost the same thing, but under a different name. And now that this bill is ready, it looks bad and it doesn’t look like what they promised queer people of Polish origin two years ago and a year ago before the elections. We also see that Polish queer activists are receiving less money, despite the widespread belief that the situation should change with the change of government. But this is not the case. Many sponsorship grants and other things were canceled because of the change of government. So I am very sad that those in power in Europe think that with the change of government in Poland it will become better, but in reality nothing has changed for us, ordinary queer people.