Resisting Exclusion — Strategies of Opposition to “LGBTQ-Free Zones” in Poland

Between 2019 and 2021, over one hundred Polish municipalities adopted symbolic resolutions to refrain from encouraging “tolerance of LGBT people,” which included withdrawing any financial assistance to organizations aiming to promote non-discrimination, banning access of such organizations to schools and promoting heterosexual marriage as the only form of state sanctioned unions. These initiatives, which took the form of signing the Charter of the Rights of the Family or declaring themselves “free from LGBT ideology,” were legally non-binding. Still, they constituted a profound attack on equality, civic pluralism, and human-rights norms. While the emergence of the “LGBT-free zones” was widely discussed in the European media and among scholars, not many know that as of October 2025 these “zones” exist no longer. This paper examines the diverse strategies of resistance mobilized by activists, NGOs, and local communities that ultimately contributed to the repeal of all such resolutions in less than 5 years. Drawing on documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews with Polish and activists, and secondary data from NGOs engaged in repelling the declaration, the study investigates how oppositional actors translated moral outrage into effective legal, political, and discursive interventions. The analysis identifies three interlocking domains of resistance. First, local-level activism which combined visibility campaigns with symbolic counter-actions, such as Pride marches in conservative regions and the “Atlas of Hate” project, which mapped discriminatory zones and drew national attention to their emergence. Second, strategic litigation and Europeanization processes including lawsuits filed in administrative courts, petitions to the European Commission, and the conditionality of EU funding, which exerted economic and reputational pressure on local authorities. Third, transnational coalition-building enabled Polish activists to situate their struggle within a wider European discourse of democratic backsliding, garnering solidarity from international human-rights bodies and municipal partnerships abroad. The paper argues that the success of this movement lies not in any single tactic but in the intersection of legal, discursive, and affective strategies that re-politicized equality as a democratic value rather than a niche identity claim. By reframing the “LGBT-free zones” as violations of constitutional and European principles, activists shifted the debate from moral panic to rule-of-law accountability.