On Thursday, April 24, officials in the town of Lańcut in the south-east of Poland voted to repeal the regulation of an ‘LGBT-free’ zone, the last remaining in the country. These zones were first established in 2019 by Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party, which was heavily against the LGBTQ+ community. The party went on to lose office in 2023.

From 2018, the LGBTQ+ community faced consistent attacks from the government, religious leaders, and other public figures in the country. On April 17, 2018, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, was responsible for one of the first high-profile political hate speeches against LGBTQ+ people in Poland. In his campaign, he made it clear that “no homosexual marriages will occur; we will wait peacefully for the European Union countries to sober up,” as noted in a document from queer rights organisation ILGA-Europe.

President Duda today referred to an LGBT “ideology of evil” in another speech, quoting Pope John Paul II.

A vice president of the @EU_Commission says “it is very sad in modern Europe” to see “politicians targeting minorities to achieve political goals” https://t.co/LO83yfZ72n

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 15, 2020

Jarosław Kaczyński’s campaign and time in office focused heavily on LGBTQ+ people and how he saw them as a threat to the way of life in Poland. In 2019, Świdnicki County would be one of the first places to adopt the idea of having an ‘LGBT-free’ zone. This slowly caused an avalanche of other counties to follow alongside them, until over 100 different cities and municipalities also adopted this ideology.

It wouldn’t be until 2021 when one of the first towns, Krasnik, would repeal its ‘LGBT-free’ zone, primarily due to the millions of euros they lost in funding. Norway and the rest of the EU were no longer supporting them due to these discriminatory zones, and the EU went on to force other cities to drop them.

In a statement released by the district office of Lańcut County, it stated that the choice to repeal the ‘LGBT-free’ zone occurred due to the loss of funding the area was facing. There were no apologies made, and it seems it was not done to amend the wrongs the LGBTQ+ community had faced in the country.

Whether or not there was a genuine change of heart, this repeal marks a huge win for LGBTQ+ rights in the country. It sparks hope for the community and comes as President Andrzej Duda is attempting to pass a measure which would add sexual orientation, gender, age, and disability to the protected characteristics under the country’s hate crime laws.