Anna Grodzka, president of TGEU, will take her seat as Poland’s first elected member of parliament. Grodzka has been a longtime supporter of LGBT equality throughout Europe and was a candidate of the Palikot Movement, a new political party that has taken special interest in LGBT issues during election.
“This is an incredible step forward for Poland” says Wiktor Dynarski, TGEU CEE Working Group coordinator. “We were aware of the fact that Anna’s decision to actually become a candidate would bring a lot more discussion on transgender issues into Polish politics, but we have never even dreamt of achieving such an incredible success!”
Grodzka will serve as a voice for the transgender people in Poland who, as TGEU points out, “feel unsafe and unheard.” Grodzka will aim to work on laws regulating official name change at the federal level.
“Poland has ignored the rights of its transgender citizens for long. It is high time to finally discuss introduction of a gender recognition law. We are optimistic that Grodzka’s success will motivate more countries in the Central-Eastern European region to take notice of the existence of transgender and intersex persons and their rights” hopes TGEU Co-chair, Richard Köhler.
