Polish LGBT+ celebrities, politicians and activists have come together in a video lip-sync to Taylor Swift’s song ‘You Need To Calm Down’ to bring attention to growing homophobia within the country.
The description of the video brings attention to the country’s current conservative government and local authorities adopting “LGBT+ free zones” which, according to the poster of the video, is the first time since WWII that public spaces excluding a minority group have been created.
Politicians featured in the video include deputy President of Warsaw, Paweł Rabiej and head of the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland party, Robert Biedron.
Celebrities featured include models Radek Pestka, Romek Gelard, Mr Gay Poland Lukasz Sabat and the fabulous drag queen Kim Lee.
The video was created by Jakub Kwiecinski a gay man who is frustrated about growing anti-LGBT sentiments in his country. Speaking to LGBTQ Nation he said that the community helped him create the video despite their lack of resources: “We asked LGBT people to record their own videos and send them to us.”
The invitation saw a huge response with over 350 video submissions from all members of the Polish LGBT+ community creating a lip-sync to ‘You Need To Calm Down’.
Recently a nationwide newspaper, Gazeta Polska issued “LGBT+ Free Zone” stickers and have said that they will continue to distribute them despite a court injunction.
https://twitter.com/johnsposhboy/status/1156137553474592768
The country has been considering a “gay propaganda” law similar to Russia’s which prohibits “propaganda of non-traditional relationships.”
Poland has a population of 38.4 million people and it is estimated that there are over two million LGBT+ people living in the country. The fabulous video is defiant in the face of growing homophobia.
The video ends with a message in Polish and in English and uses the hashtag #PolandCalmDown.
You can check out the amazing video here:
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