Poland’s first LGBTQ+ history museum opens to eager crowd: ‘Exceeded all expectations’

The first LGBTQ+ museum in Poland was overwhelmed with visitors when it opened its doors to the public, with staff saying attendance was beyond anything they could have imagined.

QueerMuzeum, in Warsaw’s Marszałkowska Street, opened its doors on Friday (6 December).

Created by Poland’s oldest LGBTQ+ group Lambda Warszawa, the museum offers visitors a look at the country’s queer history, including covert correspondence between activists, as well as photographs and pamphlets. In the archive, which opens at the end of the month, there are a further 100,000 items.

Miłosz Przepiórkowski, Lambda Warszawa’s president described the museum’s opening as a truly historic moment.

“Lambda Warszawa functions primarily as an aid organisation, so our activities aren’t visible from the outside but that’s changing today,” he said, according to Polish news outlet TVP World.

“It is a statement. We are right in the heart of [the capital] Warsaw [and] this should be a message to politicians: ‘Look, we are opening the fifth queer museum in the world in a country where the legal situation for queer people is the worst in the whole of the EU’.”

The museum’s director, Krzysztof Kliszczyński, said the opening represented a “milestone in the life of our community”, adding: “We wanted to express an obvious truth: that since there have been people on Polish soil, there have been queer people on Polish soil. Different terms were used but they have always been there.”

The first weekend was so busy that officials had to limit the number of visitors.

“Your interest in the QueerMuzeum exceeded all our expectations,” a post on the official social media pages read. “Today, on a small area, at one point there were more than 100 of you. Therefore, for the convenience and safety of both yours and ours, we need to introduce a limit of people participating in the tour. The first 40 people from the queue will be let in.”

LGBTQ+ rights in Poland

The opening marks an important moment for the LGBTQ+ community in a country that scores just 53 per cent in Equaldex’s equality rankings.

While homosexuality is legal, Poland does not recognise same-sex marriage or allow same-sex adoption and does not have tough laws have to protect against discrimination.

Last year, LGBTQ+ people celebrated after the Law and Justice Party – which oversaw more than 100 municipalities in the country declaring themselves free of so-called LGBT ideology – was ousted from power.

Covering one-third of Poland at their height, the “LGBT-free zones were condemned by the European parliament. Municipalities that enacted them were threatened with funding cuts, prompting a number of them to change tack.

In 2022, an appeal court ruled that four of the zones had to be abolished, and the last remaining one was scrapped earlier this year. Last month, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk approved draft legislation that will outlaw anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech in the country.

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