
X.Org's XDC2020 May Abandon Poland Conference to Find More Welcoming Location - xeeeeeeeeeeenu
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=XDC-2020-Options-Outside-Poland
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rossdavidh
So, as I understand it, the objectionable policies: 1) are not enforced, or
enforeable 2) are not at the national level 3) are not in Gdansk, the proposed
location Uh, huh? That seems like an oddly bigoted "all Polish are homophobes
because those other Polish are homophobes" kind of response, to register
disapproval of bigotry, if that's really the true story. Couldn't you use the
same logic to say that it shouldn't be in Europe at all, because some European
municipalities passed homophobic resolutions?

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marcinzm
The national ruling party is apparently anti-LGBT and support these zones. So
you can view it as not just isolated municipalities but rather the national
government acting through municipalities.

The broader question being asked is, if this is the situation now, what else
may be enacted before the conference. Things like, what if there's a foreign
gay attendee who's blocked at airport security?

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praptak
I don't believe this is probable. The ruling party wants to: 1. capitalize on
bigotry of voters but 2. not lose business by being perceived as bigoted.

Harassing a gay person at the border would risk 2 while not contributing to 1.

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norswap
I'd understand avoiding a city that has these policies, but avoiding the whole
country because of bigoted decisions in other _municipalities_ strikes me as
strange thinking.

It's not like every Polish person is in support. If you live in Poland and
some municipalities (not even yours) passes discriminating rules, what can you
do? Move?

Are we suddenly implicitly supporting every dumb shit done by people that are
in some way or other similar to us? It's absurd.

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0xcde4c3db
I've only skimmed a few articles about the issue, but it seems like this isn't
just a matter of a handful of municipalities acting independently, but rather
those declarations are tied into a broader push by the national ruling party
to make LGBT people its political bogeyman du jour. Politicians have made a
bunch of statements to the effect that LGBT is a foreign ideology that seeks
to sexualize children and represents a threat to Polish identity.

~~~
jacekm
Polish person here. Yes, the ruling party caters to ultra-catholic, right-
winged people. While there are many people in Poland who don't understand LGBT
and are therefore scared of it, they are a minority. We have a trans woman in
parliament and a gay guy running for presidency. It's not that bad really.

Moreover, Gdańsk, where the conference was supposed to take place is actually
one of the most tolerant and liberal cities in Poland with very open-minded
people. It would be a shame to punish them for actions of the government and
municipalities that are literally on the other side of the country.

~~~
djsumdog
Thanks for that insight. It seems sad to be fearful of an entire country
because of a few municipalities; especially when you say there are minorities
represented in government.

All over Europe, there are a lot of people who have varying opinions about
immigration, refugees, LGBT-rights, Brexit, climate change and other
controversial subjects. Rejecting an entire nation as a conference location
because some percentage of the population has gotten some press for their
controversial opinion seems very reactionary.

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DangerousPie
Seems an odd choice to avoid a whole country just because some municipalities
far away from the conference venue passed some bad laws. By the same reasoning
you could also arguing for avoiding the whole of the EU since those
municipalities are also in the EU.

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phoe-krk
> just because some municipalities far away from the conference venue passed
> some bad laws

...while being widely supported by the ruling party that follows the same
world view, you forgot to add. It's not just "some municipalities"; it's the
current political direction of Polish leaders and therefore Poland as a
country.

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k2k9k10
I find it funny considering the fact that Gdańsk is on of the most pro-
lgbt(and anti current-gov)cities in Poland (yes,I'm polish)

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praptak
The ruling party picked LGBT community as their campaign boogeyman and they
won the election. The zones are just a side effect of that:
[https://www.politico.eu/article/lgbt-poland-politics-pis-
rul...](https://www.politico.eu/article/lgbt-poland-politics-pis-ruling-party-
wrong-fight/)

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peterkelly
If you avoid any country that has bad laws/policies, you're going to be left
with a pretty short list.

~~~
marcinzm
So? Seems to me that encouraging people to visit and spend money in countries
that have done the right thing isn't a bad policy.

~~~
jacekm
True, but can you name a country that has all their policies right?

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mrweasel
It would help to know what they’re looking for in terms of capacity and
resources.

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msk1
I am Polish and it looks to me as this is decision is based on politics. No
one is prosecuting gay people in Poland but indeed there are
people/organizations who are against LGBT ideology (and I do believe that the
same can be said about other Western countries). Polish fought for decades to
have a right to express freely and openly their ideas and toughs and I hope
that pressure from any organization will not change our attitude to freedom of
speech and thought.

~~~
rsynnott
Polish people have the right to be bigoted if they wish to. Whether they have
the right to make bigoted legal ‘declarations’ is a matter for their own
courts and the ECJ and ECHR. However, organisations absolutely have the right
to take note of such laws and plan their conferences accordingly.

As a terrifying gay, Poland wouldn’t be high on my list of places to visit
right now, and I doubt I’m the only one.

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krychu
From reading a bit more on the issue those zones are defined as free of LGBT
_ideology_. Poles seem to make distinction between homosexuality and LGBT
movement, which is valuable insight. But media portrays it as zones where
homosexual people are not welcome. That’s not right. It’s concerning how much
pressure there is to accept LGBT ideals.

~~~
rsynnott
What is this sinister ideology you presume us scary gays to have, precisely? I
mean, I would have thought “please don’t treat us as second class citizens”
about sums it up.

~~~
thu2111
You're right that there is no such thing as "gay ideology". Unfortunately
though, the discussion isn't about that but rather "LGBT ideology", which
isn't really well defined but my guess is the Poles mean something like
"minority-oriented identity politics", perhaps combined with "non-child
producing relationships are great and to be celebrated rather than merely
tolerated". Consider that LGBT contains trans-sexuality which isn't the same
thing as homosexuality, but it all gets grouped together.

As for being treated as second class citizens, well, it's worth studying why
that happened to ensure there's no repeat of it. Historically speaking there's
a correlation between homophobia and societies wealth, that is, wealthier
societies have less of it and poorer societies have more of it. Or more
accurately it's related to the size of the state. This is easy to understand
in the context of how to support the elderly: in a poor country with a small
state, the family unit is essential for social stability as people without
children have no real way to support themselves in old age. Without any
welfare state they become a burden on their neighbours.

So the social pressure to have children in poorer countries with weak welfare
systems is understandably very large. About 10% of men are homosexual so a
completely free and open gay-tolerant culture effectively requires villages
and towns to support 10% of a childless male population in old age or
sickness, something that's completely impossible without a large,
sophisticated and consensually-based welfare state. Which of course most parts
of the world didn't have for a very long time and many places still don't
have. Social pressure on gay men to find a wife and have children despite
their orientation was thus the only tool available.

Ex-Soviet states in particular are full of people who watched as a government
that provided a lavish welfare state ended up collapsing completely,
impoverishing millions. It's not a huge surprise that we see a lot of family-
oriented conservatism there as a consequence. They have direct experience of
the opposite approach failing them.

This sort of analysis matters because it suggests there might be a problem in
future if we don't find ways to make society much more wealthy, due to the
financial viability problems facing many pension schemes, large government
deficits in many countries etc. Are the current levels of welfare state
spending viable? I think they certainly _can_ be, as there are countries with
strong safety nets and balanced budgets. But in many western countries they're
currently on borrowed time. At the moment politicians are trying to solve this
via mass immigration to ensure the young population can still support the old,
but that's increasingly facing pushback in Europe and America. If at some
point the welfare state stops delivering on its promises and governments start
slashing pension rights, as happened during the collapse of the USSR, then
social pressure to have children will return and we might see anti-gay
sentiment flare up again.

I don't like where this analysis leads, but fortunately I don't see any
fundamental barriers to increasing productivity by a large amount and thus
balancing the welfare books. As long as the welfare state is strong, LGBT
people will be able to live in peace.

~~~
rsynnott
I really don't buy that in this case. Poland's population has been stagnant or
falling since the fall of the Soviet Union, like most of the rest of the
Eastern bloc, and politically motivated homophobia has ramped up abruptly in
the last year (rather than, say, in the early naughties, as you'd expect if it
was actually associated with worries about population). I'd more or less
assume it's because the migrant crisis has largely ended, so PiS needs
something new to scare people with.

EDIT: Incidentally, I suspect that much the same thing has happened more
broadly in the developed world with trans people. In the late 20th and early
21st century, many Western European countries passed major reforms to trans
rights, and it largely went without comment from the far right, because they
were at the time fixated on same-sex marriage. It was only _after_ most
countries legalised same-sex marriage and the sky failed to fall in that the
"trans people are corrupting and impurifying all of our precious bodily
fluids" thing started, and it only wound up to full volume as the perceived
threat of the migrant crisis faded (to the point that it now seems to be
basically the primary issue for some European far-right groups). Some people,
presumably, always need an enemy. I wonder who it'll be next.

~~~
thu2111
Yes, but issues that politicians pay attention to isn't at all a perfect
correlation for issues that the population cares about. They tend to only
focus on a handful of issues at the same time for instance. It's possible PiS
is now focusing on it for the first time but those attitudes were there the
whole time.

edit: Oh, for transsexuality, perhaps the issue is that it seems to be
increasing? It's an extremely rare thing in any event but it makes sense that
if the numbers start going up it'd attract more attention:

[https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-
issues/...](https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-
issues/2010-2019/2018/vol-131-no-1468-19-january-2018/7463)

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pndy
So what this conference supposed to be about? X.Org and related projects
development or how sexual life and preferences is affecting it?

Seems that people downvoting in reddit fashion are failing to see the
absurdity of this decision which is clearly caused by mixing professional and
private life by the interested party.

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timwaagh
If it had been Grozny you'd have a point. But as far as I know the safety of
lbgtq people is not under threat in Poland, despite the issue being heavily
politicised.

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Jerry2
'Cancel Culture' strikes again.

