Life

Milicz becomes smallest town in Poland to host LGBTQ+ march: “History is happening here”

By Conor Clark

23rd May 2022

Twitter [@RobertMaslak]

Milicz, a town of 11,000 people in Poland, has become the smallest in the country to host an LGBTQ+ equality march.

Taking place on 22 May, it marked the first to ever take place in the town.

Speaking in Milicz’s market square, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, a Member of the Sejm, said: “History is happening here, so remember this day.”

“Change will not happen in the squares of the largest cities,” she added. “We already have Warsaw, Kraków and Wrocław, where there have been equality marches for years. But here, in Milicz, is a real change for equality, love and acceptance.”

Myślmy, a local NGO, organised the event in Milicz and stated that only 100 or so people were expected to attend, though there ended up being two to three times that number, according to newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

Among the town’s locals were politicians and activists, some of which travelled there in order to attend.

The march in Milicz had a heavy police presence, which is fairly normal of all LGBTQ+ marches in the country.

Poland’s first Pride march took place in 2001, though LGBTQ+ equality in the country has been less stable in recent years due to the implementation of ‘LGBT-free zones’ there.

President Andrzej Duda has also expressed an array of homophobic views, including that being LGBTQ+ is “an ideology”.