The Fight against Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and EU Enlargement

8While each developed at its own pace, the institutionalization of the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation in EU policy and EU enlargement toward Central and Eastern European countries occurred within similar timeframes and had mutual effects. During the 1990s, the EU gradually started to recognize sexual orientation as a cause of discrimination. [8] The adoption of the Roth Report—named after German Green Party lawmaker and member of the European Parliament, Claudia Roth—and the resulting Resolution on Equal Rights for Homosexuals and Lesbians in the European Community (A30028/94) marked a critical step in the EU’s recognition of gay and lesbian rights. [9] In 1997, Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam included sexual orientation in the list of reasons for discrimination against which the EU could take action. In 2000, this article was implemented by Directive 2000/78/EC, which is binding for Member States. However, it only covered the fight against this type of discrimination in the area of employment. These changes occurred in a context of intense debates in several Western European countries about the legal recognition of same-sex unions (civil unions and/or marriages), with proponents of legal recognition of such unions sometimes referring to the EU’s stance since the Roth Report to legitimate their claims. [10]

9Poland submitted its application for EU membership in 1994, which required the adoption of European norms in a number of areas. The Treaty of Accession formally establishing EU enlargement was signed on April 16, 2003, and the date set for it to take effect, and thus for Poland to officially join the EU was May 1, 2004, on condition that future Member States ratify the Accession Treaty—which Poland did on June 8, 2003 in a referendum in which 58.8% of the population voted, with 77.4% supporting EU membership. [11]

10The period between 1997 and 2004, which covered and exceeded the official period for negotiations (1998–2002), was marked by tense exchanges between Poland and the European Union, and in particular with the European Commission. Throughout this process, the Commission performed annual evaluations of the progress candidate countries were making toward meeting the economic and political conditions required for EU membership. This monitoring, along with official recommendations from the Commission which held the power to halt or postpone the accession process, was indispensable to the mechanism of political conditionality at the core of the fifth enlargement of the EU. Indeed, not only did candidate states have to transpose all EU law into their national legislation prior to accession, but they also had to meet fundamental political conditions known as “membership criteria”, proving that their institutions “guarante[ed] democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the respect for and protection of minorities” [12] (as well as economic conditions such as having a “functioning market economy”). Once again, in 1997, the Treaty of Amsterdam specified these political conditions and the final step was taken to institutionalize the mechanism of political conditionality, which had been more implicit and much less important during previous enlargements. As a result, the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation as recognized in the Treaty was likely to feature in negotiations both in these fundamental political conditions (with regard to the rights of minorities), and in the transposition of existing EU law, particularly Directive 2000/78/EC.

Institutional Dynamics: The Significance of the Fight against Discrimination in Accession Negotiations with Poland

11A close examination of the numerous reports and documents published by various EU institutions (Regular Reports from the Commission on Poland’s Progress towards Accession, Accession Partnerships of the European Council, reports and resolutions from the European Parliament) and by the Polish government (particularly the Office of the Committee for European Integration, or Urząd Komitetu Integracji Europejskiej) reveals the weight of various topics in the negotiations as well as in the effective application of the principle of conditionality and the transposition of EU law. [13] Clearly, economic aspects were prioritized over political and social rights, as many authors have already pointed out, [14] while issues pertaining to gender equality and the fight against discrimination generally played a marginal role until the end of the process. While unequal treatment for men and women and discrimination based on ethnicity or nationality were addressed in the Opinion of the Commission in 1997 prior to negotiations, these issues vanished entirely from reports by the Commission in the following years (1998 and 1999). In its 2000 report, the Commission twice mentioned the unequal treatment of men and women in the workplace in Poland. According to this report, “legislation transposing the EU directive based on Article 13 of the Treaty relative to discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin will have to be introduced and implemented.” [15] In 2001, the chapter on social policy and employment simply stated that “preparatory work is ongoing in the field of transposing EU law on anti-discrimination” despite previously stating that progress in this area “has been limited.” [16]

12Until 2001, the preparatory reports (1996 and 1997) and the informational reports Poland submitted to the Commission for progress assessment merely cited the legal provisions Poland already had in place to fight the unequal treatment of men and women as well as discrimination based on sex, age, disabled status, race, nationality, beliefs, political or religious affiliation, or membership in a labor union. [17] Although the reports gave greater weight to inequalities between men and women over the years, the fight against other types of discrimination was hardly ever mentioned again.

13These reports did not reflect the impact of the adoption of Directive 2000/78/EC until 2002. In a report sent to the Commission in June 2002, the Polish government indicated the creation of a Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Women and Men, which would eventually be expanded to cover the fight against all forms of discrimination. Created in November 2001 by order of the Council of Ministers, this body became responsible in June 2002 for “preparations in view of opening an office devoted to fighting discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, religion and beliefs, age, and sexual orientation” and until such time, for the “promotion, initiation, implementation, and coordination of government programs to fight discrimination,” including “support for the actions of groups, organizations, and milieus active in the struggle against discriminations.” [18] Further, the report announced that the labor code was to be modified in order to align it with Directive 2000/78/EC, and it once again included sexual orientation among the causes of discrimination. The 2002 report by the European Commission also mentioned these two items, stating that “full transposition and implementation of the anti-discrimination directives will require further amendment of the Labour Code as well as other changes to the legal framework in order to transpose the aspects of EU law that do not relate to employment. The Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Women and Men still needs to establish an anti-discrimination body.” [19] However, this warning hardly impacted negotiations since the chapter in question had been closed since September 2001, and because the report was published only a few months before the end of negotiations and the issuance of a positive opinion by the Commission. In the 2003 report, given that legislative changes had not yet been made and the anti-discrimination agency had yet to be created, the Commission plainly stated that “some anti-discrimination provisions under the Labor Code are still in discussion in Parliament. Moreover . . . the Equality Body required by EU law needs to be established.” [20]

14Thus the sudden introduction in 2002 of the fight against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in negotiations is only relative: whereas the issue was mentioned more frequently in reports, it remained marginal, and the measures adopted by the Polish government were incomplete. In fact, the office for fighting discrimination, plans for which were announced in 2002, was never created and amendments to the Labor Code were not implemented until January 1, 2004, only a few months before Poland joined the EU. [21] Moreover, the appearance of sexual orientation in negotiations in 2002 can be attributed to factors other than political pressure from the EU. For example, the decision to create a Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Women and Men was equally motivated by domestic political factors, if not more so. This body was established by the new government elected in October 2001 and was the fulfillment of campaign promises by the Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej), the majority party in the new government. Its creation was announced following a meeting between the newly elected prime minister, Leszek Miller, women parliamentarians, and representatives of NGOs devoted to women’s rights. Although the expansion of its competency to include the fight against discrimination (until the creation of a specific body) in June 2002 has often been attributed to pressure from the European Commission, no clear recommendations to do so were mentioned in the annual reports. While more indirect, less official pressure may have occurred, the importance of local political dynamics must not be underestimated, particularly the political will of the Plenipotentiary as well as cooperation between NGOs devoted to women’s rights and those devoted to gay and lesbian rights. [22]

15In Poland, the legal protection for citizens facing discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and the financial and symbolic support the Office of the Plenipotentiary offered organizations fighting for gay and lesbian rights were thus direct consequences of the process of transposing EU law. At the same time, however, the leverage offered by conditionality was very weak on this point, and it would never have been in a position to derail negotiations. Reports by the Commission only took legislative and institutional measures into account and did not include information concerning the reality of discrimination and the experiences of sexual minorities in Poland. In addition, the rights of sexual minorities were never listed along with the fundamental rights of minorities, which were supposed to be a political sine qua non of accession. In conclusion, the top-down imposition by the EU of anti-discrimination policies covering sexual orientation is therefore more complex than it may appear at first glance. [23] Furthermore, approaches to the accession process that heavily stressed political conditionality have been criticized, and rightly so, for their institutionalism and their blindness to other processes affecting the diffusion of norms, and in particular the cognitive processes of socialization and appropriation. [24] These approaches also tend to underestimate the influence of local and national dynamics on political transformations as well as the interactions between the different levels and types of actors. [25] Therefore, it is necessary to examine the impact transnational and Polish NGOs had on the dissemination and appropriation of norms during the enlargement process.

ILGA-Europe: A Transnational Advocacy Network at the EU level

16The role that transnational advocacy networks [26] played in the gradual integration of sexual orientation in Council of Europe and EU policies should not be underestimated. [27] For many years, ILGA-Europe and the European Parliament’s Intergroup for LGBT Rights had been working to make European institutions adopt binding legislation in this area. ILGA-Europe is a particularly interesting case. It was created in 1996 when the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) split into regional groups, with ILGA-Europe becoming the European branch. Of all the regional groups, it has been the most active and by far the best endowed financially. Incidentally, since its creation in 1978, ILGA (IGA before 1986) had always been much more active in Europe, lobbying Europe’s various supranational institutions. [28] In 1992, it opened an office in Brussels in order to lobby the European Commission, and that same year, the Commission commissioned a report from ILGA.

17ILGA also took an interest in Central and Eastern European countries from its earliest days. In 1981, it commissioned the Viennese organization Homosexual Initiative (HOSI) to create the Eastern European Information Pool. From 1987, ILGA held a yearly conference for Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the second meeting taking place in Warsaw in 1988. The European Commission valued ILGA’s openness to Central and Eastern Europe. In 1995, ILGA received substantial funding for the first time from the EU as part of the PHARE and TACIS programs for a project in Russia and the Baltic countries. However, the main goal of the European branch of ILGA was to capitalize on the success of having sexual orientation included in the Treaty of Amsterdam by striving to become a legitimate and regular partner to the Commission. In 1998, it published a report funded by the Commission on gay and lesbian rights in the EU (although it did not take future EU enlargement into account). [29] In 2001, it secured core funding from the Commission, which allowed it to hire two, and later four, employees and to rent office space in Brussels. [30] Since then, the Commission has been the primary source of funding for ILGA, which has undergone a process of professionalization [31] and increased its lobbying efforts of EU institutions and the Council of Europe.

18Simultaneously, ILGA-Europe began focusing on issues pertaining to EU enlargement. It made this topic a priority in 2001 and launched a project on the accession of new countries from Central and Eastern Europe, funded by the Open Society Institute. In the first report published under this project, ILGA-Europe clearly stated that its goal was more than just verifying that laws of candidate countries aligned with EU standards. It advocated for the Copenhagen criteria of “respect for human rights, including the protection of minorities” to be interpreted as a requirement for

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. . . positive action by government to eliminate discrimination in society more generally. Such action should include, for example, the introduction of laws prohibiting discrimination, programs to counter violent attacks, to ensure equal access to jobs and to government services, and to educate the general public. [32]

20This report, which included a short chapter on the legal and social status of gays and lesbians in each candidate country, aimed to provide the Commission with the documentation needed to establish this requirement. Regarding four countries, including Poland, ILGA-Europe also oversaw the writing of specific and more systematic reports. In these countries, project coordinators selected a partner organization, which conducted a study on their behalf and drafted the report based on the methodology and questionnaire designed by ILGA-Europe. According to one of the initiators of the project, the goal was to “prove the existence of discrimination” in order to “get LGB [Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual] issues into the accession reports, in detail.” [33]

21All of these reports were distributed to the various EU institutions involved in the accession process. On June 28, 2001, the Intergroup on LGBT rights held a public hearing at the European Parliament entitled “EU Enlargement: A Gay Perspective” during which members of ILGA-Europe presented the reports to MEPs and representatives of the Commission. Following this hearing, Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enlargement, sent a letter to IGLA-Europe in which he stated that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation would receive the Commission’s full attention. In addition, in his speech to the European Parliament in September, 2001, he stated that he wanted to “make it crystal clear that the Commission will continue to press in enlargement negotiations for full observance of human rights and the rights of minorities. This includes a ban on any discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, or religious conviction.” [34] Members of ILGA-Europe saw this statement as a direct result of their lobbying activities.

22The actual impact the above had on negotiations is difficult to assess. Generally speaking, it was likely greater in countries with discriminatory laws in force than in others, such as Poland. Furthermore, despite the efforts of ILGA-Europe, the Commission did not include information on the scope of discrimination in the annual reports and instead settled for monitoring the implementation of the directive on employment. However, EU enlargement clearly had an impact on ILGA-Europe. It offered a window of opportunity for an organization seeking to be an interlocutor of European institutions, and became one of the organization’s priority areas during the 2000s. In the words of Joke Swiebel, “[T]he EU enlargement process became an important policy area into which the notion that gay and lesbian rights are human rights was plugged.” [35]

The Transnational Socialization of Polish Activists

23Clearly, the commitment of transnational networks to fighting homophobia in Central and Eastern European countries and their lobbying of the European Commission to pressure candidate States impacted local mobilizations in these countries. These effects were substantial and widespread, affecting Polish NGOs’ recruitment practices, structure, and strategies. The cogwheels set in motion by EU enlargement transformed the political opportunities of NGOs, including on the national level. The creation of the Office of the Plenipotentiary and the inclusion of sexual orientation in the anti-discrimination law were two major events that transformed the relationship between Polish gay and lesbian organizations and the State. As already indicated, these transformations stemmed from both local politics and transnational factors, which altered the field of gay and lesbian NGOs.

24In 2001, a new type of organization emerged in Poland. Early in the year, the Polish branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Cultural Network, [36] called ILGCN-Polska, was created. On May 1, 2001, it organized the first Equality Parade (Parada Równości) in the streets of Warsaw. Despite receiving limited media coverage, it brought together 300 participants, according to activist sources. In September, a new organization called Campaign Against Homophobia (Kampania Przeciw Homofobii) was founded. Its members decided to focus primarily on political and lobbying activities, and it quickly became the preferred partner in Poland for ILGA-Europe and European institutions. [37] Members of these new organizations differed significantly from those that went before. Whereas in the 1990s most activists had separate professions or attempted to become entrepreneurs in community-based businesses (which some did successfully in the media, entertainment, or the gay sex industry), new activists in the early 2000s tended to be younger and became active as students, though many are now professional activists (sometimes in other types of NGOs) or have become academics specializing in gender or sexuality studies (in Polish or Western European universities). The influence of the global spread of North American culture on their self-identification is palpable. In the interviews I conducted, gay activists often said that they identified with characters from US television shows during adolescence, and Lesbian and bisexual activists tended to cite the role of lesbian and/or feminist literature from North America. Many also said that trips to Western Europe or North America inspired them to become activists. For instance, one of the founders of the Culture for Tolerance festival in Cracow said that his original idea was to replicate the concept of a Pride Week like the one he attended while he was working a summer job in Cork, Ireland.

25The changing profiles of organization members cannot be attributed solely to a new era characterized by the large-scale importation of cultural products, the greater mobility of the Polish population (sometimes for vacations but most often for work), and the influence of new information and communication technologies. [38] While these factors clearly altered the profiles of activists, it is also necessary to examine the process of intense socialization—and in particular of transnational socialization—that occurred in the first months or years of their activism and its impacts on the social selection of activists. All the new organizations quickly became members of ILGA-Europe and of the International Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender and Queer Youth and Student Organization (IGLYO). Annual conferences held by transnational organizations proved to be extremely important locations for socialization, in the sense both of a learning process (both formal in the workshops and lectures, and informal in all other interactions) and of the process of becoming part of a group. Activists were also invited to thematic workshops organized by ILGA-Europe as well as to various events in Western Europe, where they gave presentations on the situation of sexual minorities in Poland and on their initiatives. The host organizations often imposed requirements with regard to gender (equal number of gay/bisexual men, gay/bisexual women, and trans people) and sometimes age. In addition, Polish organizations also had internal selection criteria such as language (the best speakers of foreign languages, English in particular, traveled more frequently) and availability of free time—and sometimes funding, though the costs incurred by Polish activists between 2001 and 2007 were often covered by the host organizations.

26Of course, this vibrant transnational activity impacted the organizations, primarily the way in which they were structured. For instance, the requirement to fight against the invisibility of lesbians in organizations was soon adopted by all activists, at least on a discursive level. Similarly, the decision to include trans people in gay and lesbian organizations, which would later become LGBT organizations, was made very early. This was at least partly due to activists’ desire to align themselves with what was being expressed at international conferences. [39] However, it seems clear that transnational socialization also had excluding effects, especially for activists who were uncomfortable expressing themselves in English (or in German or French to a lesser extent) or who were unfamiliar with the “cosmopolitan” cultural codes typical of international meetings (ways of speaking in public, modes of informal interaction, music tastes, etc.). As a result, the social selection of activists produced by the high degree of transnationalization of Polish gay and lesbian organizations was also related to social class. Transnational activity influenced not only the internal structure of organizations but also the actual field of NGOs, as the organizations with close ties to ILGA-Europe gained greater legitimacy as reliable interlocutors for European institutions and potential partner organizations in Western Europe, producers of sound information, and potential partners of the Polish government.

27Lastly, being part of a transnational network had a major influence on Polish NGOs’ action repertoire, discursive strategies, and politics of representation. The socializing effects of conducting a survey on discrimination and drafting reports in order to help ILGA-Europe provide European institutions with information about homophobia in Poland, as described above, must not be underestimated. The sharing of survey methodology and ways of using survey results in the lobbying of European institutions marked the first knowledge transfer between ILGA-Europe and local organizations (here, Lambda Warszawa and later Kampania Przeciw Homofobii). A “toolbox” was transferred to them that was designed to produce a specific type of knowledge in line with the readability requirements of European institutions. At the same time, they were integrated into a technological knowledge apparatus in which they played a specific role. This apparatus for knowledge production and circulation included, in particular, the categories in which local NGOs were encouraged to think, describe, and measure not only discrimination but also the homosexual population of their country. [40]

28For instance, the first public campaign by Kampania Przeciw Homofobii in 2003 (displaying pictures of gay and lesbian couples holding hands on billboards and entitled Niech Nas Zobaczą, “Let Them See Us”) helped to spread new categories of knowledge to a broader audience. Its webpage had a section called “What is discrimination?” as well as a section on the EU, which presented the European Union as a vital source of support for gay and lesbian rights and described Poland’s accession in 2004 as a major moment in the advancement of these rights in the country. [41] Many NGOs published glossaries with definitions of terms they considered critical. Most provided the legal definition of discrimination, and definitions of sexual orientation and of coming out as a process of self-acceptance and of revealing one’s sexual orientation to friends and family. In 2006, the program of the Culture for Tolerance festival in Cracow included a short glossary of 20 terms, including “sexual orientation,” “coming out,” “gay,” “lesbian,” “LGBT,” “queer,” “transsexuality” and “transgenderism,” but also “gender,” “homophobia,” “drag queen,” “Stonewall,” “Gay pride,” and “rainbow flag.” This practice culminated in the publication of the brochure “Facts and Myths on Lesbians and Gays” by Porozumienie Lesbijek (“Lesbian Coalition”) in 2006 [42] and of the “Rainbow Reader” by Robert Biedroń, president of Kampania Przeciw Homofobii in 2007. [43] While these documents clearly deconstruct the homophobic stereotypes used against gay and lesbian organizations, they also aim to educate the public and to spread this new vocabulary and concepts, which they borrowed at least partially from Western movements. Although the phenomenon is not new, since many terms had already been translated and mainstreamed by homosexual activists in the 1990s (including the term “gay,” which became gej in Polish), it gained unprecedented momentum in the 2000s.

29The organization of public marches (Equality Parade in Warsaw from 2001; March for Tolerance in Cracow and Equality March in Poznan from 2004) was clearly inspired by the Gay Pride tradition that emerged in the United States and is now widespread in Western countries. It borrowed some of its symbols (including the rainbow flag) and founding myths (such as the commemoration of the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969). However, Polish activists did not adopt the call for gay and lesbian “pride,” opting instead for terms such as “equality” and “tolerance.” During the first years, these marches, particularly the ones in Cracow and Poznan, advocated the recognition of all minorities and they did not use floats with music since the organizers wanted to clearly distinguish these marches from those in Western Europe. In addition, public marches, which in many Central and Eastern European countries were threatened by institutional bans, physical attacks from opponents, or even police violence, became another focal area for ILGA-Europe, which published a booklet on organizing marches in “hostile environments,” [44] and held workshops to train activists in the practice of monitoring public events and alerting international institutions.

30Although the influence of the transnational framework on gay and lesbian activism in Poland is undeniable, this influence resulted less from direct injunctions and impositions than from complex forms of socialization and encouragement, which played out in a context of economic, political, and cultural inequalities. In this process, Polish activists were not passive “receptacles” but took an active role in selecting, translating, appropriating, and re-signifying elements forged in the North American and West European activist traditions, and in propagating these practices in Poland. [45]

New Political Uses of Homophobia on the National Stage

31In Polish public discourse, the association between the European Union and gay and lesbian rights, which the new generation of activists helped to forge, is paralleled by another association between Polish identity and heterosexuality or even homophobia. This discourse appeared and became politicized during the 2003 “Let Them See Us” campaign, which sparked violent reactions in the public sphere, with some billboards being vandalized and Kampania Przeciw Homofobii being harshly criticized and accused of provocation and of offending Polish culture and values. Members of the ultra-nationalist League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin) even asked the Polish Parliament to dissolve the Office of the Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Men and Women, which partly funded the campaign. In short, it was during this period that nationalist parties began making regular use of homophobia as a political resource for resisting Poland’s loss of sovereignty to the EU.

32This “homophobic nationalism”—or “nationalist homophobia”—was based on a combination of religious factors, references to Polish history (namely a glorified version of Polish resistance to foreign occupation and communism), and defense of the heterosexist order. According to Agnieszka Graff, at that precise moment, the denial of gay and lesbian rights came to symbolize Polish sovereignty and independence from the EU along with the issue of banning abortion, which had been playing this role since the start of the accession process. [46] As Graff noted in 2010, during this period,

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not only were gays and lesbians being stigmatized in the name of patriotism but national sentiment was now regularly expressed through the exclusion of the sexual (rather than the ethnic or cultural) other. Thus it is not just that homophobia was becoming politicized or that politicized homophobia was displacing other existing forms of gay bashing . . . but that homophobia was becoming the new discourse of patriotism. [47]

34This political rhetoric enjoyed great success from 2004 to 2007 and was accompanied by political actions, including a ban on marches in Warsaw (2004 and 2005) and Poznań (2005). The Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) used this rhetoric extensively while campaigning for the 2005 presidential and legislative elections. By the fall of 2005, it was in power. In 2006, it formed a coalition with the League of Polish Families, and government members promised to tackle the issue of “homosexual propaganda,” particularly in the area of education. In addition to the counter-demonstrations attacking the Equality Marches, “Normality Marches” were organized by the youth wing of the League of Polish Families. These protests used many slogans against the EU, which they referred to as “Euro-Sodom.”

35All of these developments received high media coverage in Western Europe, in part thanks to Polish gay and lesbian organizations, which relayed information through their international contacts. Some LGBT activists in Western Europe organized solidarity initiatives. They offered financial support to Polish organizations and protested outside Polish embassies, [48] and many traveled to Poland to participate in public marches. In June 2006 and April 2007, the European Parliament passed two resolutions against homophobia, which referred specifically to Poland. [49] In turn, these reactions were used by nationalist opponents of the gay and lesbian movement as support for their argument that the EU was trying to enforce deviant standards foreign to Polish culture. Gay and lesbian organizations were demonized as being part of “the pink Internationale in action,” and a “gay lobby,” as a journalist with OZON magazine referred to them in 2006. The cover read: “We are homophobes. 85% of Polish people are opposed to [legalized] homosexual partnerships. The European Parliament views this is symptomatic of a phobia.” [50]

Polish Homophobia: A “Tradition” Invented in the Post-Socialist Context?

36Like any other mobilizations, the shows of solidarity by the West for Polish gays and lesbians were not spontaneous manifestations of indignation unrelated to a cultural or political context. The fascination of West European media outlets, organizations, and political parties with the situation in Poland climaxed in 2005–2006. [51] This was propelled not only by an effective information exchange but also—and perhaps more importantly—by a specific (though circumstantial) interest in Poland and Eastern and Central European countries in general. In the context of EU enlargement and of the debate over the European Constitution, this sudden interest in the social situation of Eastern and Central European countries did not emerge by chance. In France, media coverage of the public demonstrations of homophobia in Poland coincided with the debate on the Bolkestein Directive and the “Polish plumber.” [52] More generally, the representations of Poland used in Western discourses often derived from a much older imaginary, one of a Poland completely controlled by an obscurantist and backward Catholic Church. Whereas the actual influence of the Catholic Church on Polish politics is real—and in the case of the politicization of homophobia, it could be the focus of a separate study—, the idea of the imprisonment of Polish society in a supposedly immutable Catholic tradition is highly problematic. Indeed, if Polish people were homophobic by tradition and if politicians were entirely controlled by the clergy, why then did homophobia suddenly become politicized in the 2000s and not before? As was the case with abortion, which was legal for forty years before being banned in 1993, these developments were spurred by political processes rather than being simply an expression of tradition or a cultural trend. However, this culturalist view, which is very widespread in the West, validated the idea that groups standing against gay and lesbian rights were the authentic representatives of Polish tradition and culture, which is precisely how they wanted to be viewed.

37Poland is not the only country where nationalism and the political condemnation of homosexuality came to be interwoven. Similar interactions are described by studies of the “globalization of sexuality”, especially in post-colonial contexts. [53] In a paper published in 2009, Sharad Chari and Katherine Verdery drew an analogy between post-colonialism and post-socialism, which is relevant here. According to them,

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Just as post-coloniality had become a critical perspective on the colonial present, post-socialism could become a similarly critical standpoint on the continuing social and spatial effects of Cold War power and knowledge (such as in. . . gender/sexual relations . . .) [54]

39The authors borrowed Carl Pletsch’s concept of a division of intellectual labor that originated during the Cold War. [55] This “Three Worlds” ideology is constructed along two axes: communist/free and traditional/modern. These produce three domains:

40

[A] “free” First World that is modern, scientific, rational, and therefore a “natural” society; a “communist” Second World controlled by ideology and propaganda, with “natural society” subordinated to a totalitarian state; and a Third World that is “traditional,” irrational, overpopulated, religious, and economically “backward.” [56]

41What needs to be understood is the ways in which this sharing of knowledge still impacts the former post-socialist “Second World” as well as the postcolonial “Third World,” both of which are subjected to the demand to modernize issued by the “First World.”

42Of course, this paper does not argue that these situations are identical or equivalent. Rather, it attempts to demonstrate how they are interrelated and sometimes produce similar effects despite their differences. Just as the construction by colonial powers of sexualized figures of colonized people still produces effects today, the sexualization of the borderline between the First and Second worlds is not new. A history of the representations of communists and homosexuals in the West, mirroring Soviet ideology’s viewing of homosexuality as a “vice of the bourgeoisie,” would shed new light on the tensions of today. Today, both the post-socialist and postcolonial contexts share a relation to the hegemonic Western definition of (sexual) modernity, which is sustained by the asymmetry of political and economic positions and formalized in international institutions.