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On June 8, the ZSP Warsaw took part as a co-organizer of the Praga Equality Parade, together with Praga Equality collective, the Abortion Dream Team, the Tenants' Defense Committee and the Youth Climate Strike. Members of We Parents and Homokomando also joined in the parade.

The Praga Equality Parade was the first parade of 3 occuring in Pride Month in Warsaw. It marched through the working-class neighbourhoods of Praga North and South. ZSP had a banner saying „There is no Equality in Capitalism” and handed out leaflets with our anti-capitalist position and information about our booklet on fighting for your rights in the workplace that focuses also on the particular problems of queer people on the labour market.

This march was set as an alternative to the main parade which usually takes place in Warsaw. As such, it declared that it was not open to either political parties or corporations. It was also certainly not open to organizations which support TERFs (such as the Worker's Initiative, whose members were banned from last year's main parade). At this point, there should be an explanation of why there are actually three parades this year and why this is a very good thing.

We here in the Warsaw organization participated in the main parade at the beginning of its history, when it was a small and rather marginal event. We also organized defense of the march against fascist groups that tried to attack it. However, later on, we were not satisfied that the official organizers tried to mainstream this event, seeking all sorts of political and corporate sponsorship. We did not participate for years and only did so the year before because of the political climate and the fact that there were some groups that wanted to march together in an anti-capitalist block. This was in quite stark contrast to the corporate-sponsored vehicles and the campaign wagons of political parties that took up a lot of space in the march. After this event, some people said that they thought an alternative march could and should be organized.

However, even more serious things occured. As the Parliamentary elections were taking places, a number of LGBTQ organizations met with different political parties and make an „agreement” with them that LGBTQ organizations would not fight for issues such as gay marriage.
Of course, such an agreement was only the idea of a few usurpant organizations that were so stupid to push for the election of the current government, trying to convince people that it would „fight for gay rights”. (The same was true of some feminists who tried to convince people that these people, many of whom never ever supported abortion rights, would allow abortion on demand in Poland.)

Such betrayals already took place a few times in recent Polish history, including when the former Left government agreed with the church that it would not legalize abortion (as they had promised), if the church agreed not to make a campaign against joining the European Union.

As one can imagine, in a country where gay marriage is not recognized (even if the people were legally married elsewhere) and the church rails against the idea of adoption by non-hetero couples, many LGBTQ people demand equal rights and see this „agreement” as an unacceptable betrayal.

The second problem is that there were some nasty power plays in the foundation that organized the main parade with accusations that it basically stole money. The main parade is sponsored by both the City and the European Commission.

The mainstream media of course potrays this as a matter of organizers having some silly fight but for us, none of this is silly and the fact that some organizations tried to act on behalf of everybody and water down demands because they believed this would help some politicians they support be elected is absolutely deplorable. The difference in attitudes and practices of the different parades were very clear for us.

When the parade was announced it stated that it would be the one that „doesn't bow down to politicians, begging them on their knees for some political patronage, nor would it be open to the pinkwashing of banksters...” and that it was open to all people who face inequality.

Therefore, besides slogans and postulates concerning LGBTQIA+ issues, others were heard: in support of immigrants, against war and militarism, in particular for an end to the war in Gaza and for its reconstruction, for the right to abortion etc. For LGBTQIA+ people, there were specific postulates that ran contrary to the people who tried to sell everybody out, such as an end to discrimination concerning marriage and adoption rights, access to pre-natal care for transmen and healthcare for trans people in general, making it easier to change gender in documents and adding other gender identities and even programs aimed at homeless people. (There is a serious problem with this among many LGBT+ people). Other postulates and slogans were promoted during the march.

A couple of hundred people took part in this march, which we consider not bad at all, given the circumstances. Some individuals tried to make trouble for this march because it did not want any politicians or political parties and some people showed their class prejudices, spreading fear that the march would be attacked because it went through working-class neighbourhoods. (Apart from a couple of shouts and a small group of religious people praying at one tram stop, nothing happen and there was a lot of support from local residents.) Yet others don't want to understand why there is more than one march, because we should „be altogether” - behind corporate bankster trucks and with organizations that make shady deals without asking anybody else's opinion, trying to represent all LGBTQ people.

We hope that those on the march will decide to do it again next year and help build an alternative movement from below.