His brother threatened him with a knife, and his parents humiliated him. A gay man from Belarus talks about moving to Poland and finally feeling safe

At 14, Jan (name changed) told his family that he was gay. They reacted very negatively to the news, and his brother even reached for a knife. After finishing school, the young man left Belarus for Poland, where he enrolled at a university. He told to MOST about life in a new country, attitudes toward LGBTQ people, and his experience dealing with the Polish police.

Jan is 18 years old. He became aware of his sexual orientation during adolescence and came out to his family at 14.

“My brother threatened me with a knife, waving it in front of my face, while my parents watched and said, ‘This is all your own fault,’” the young man recalls their reaction. “I couldn't stay home that day, so I ran away and spent the night in the entryway of another apartment building. I didn't go to any other relatives because I was afraid.”

Jan's classmates soon learned about his sexual orientation as well. That was how he became openly gay. According to the interviewee, from eighth grade until he graduated from school in Belarus, he never once encountered homophobia from his classmates.

Some teachers also suspected Jan's sexual orientation, while others initiated conversations with him about it and tried to support him in difficult situations.

The young man recalls how his parents once asked his homeroom teacher for help, admitting that they “could no longer control him.”

“He asked why I treated my parents that way. I told him that at home I was regularly humiliated with words like ‘f**got’ and ‘you'll burn in hell.’ After that, my parents were called into school for a meeting, and the insults stopped for a while,” the interviewee says. “Something similar happened with a psychologist. He told my parents that my mental state was normal for a teenager and that my sexual orientation was not an illness.”

If you get beaten up, the Polish police won't say, “Well, just look at the way you're dressed”

Jan moved to the European Union in part because it was important for him to have the option of marrying a man in the future. In his opinion, the legalization of same-sex marriage is impossible in Belarus.

In Poland, the young man enrolled at a university, where he is now in his second year. He emphasizes that although same-sex marriages are not performed in the country, it recently became possible to enter certificates of same-sex marriages performed abroad into the Polish register.

Jan admits that when he moved to Poland, he did not expect any major differences. From what he has observed, most gay men in the country, just as in Belarus, try not to publicize their sexual orientation and “keep their private lives private.”

According to Jan, Poles’ attitude toward the LGBTQ community is also not much different from that in Belarus, and in some ways it even seems worse to him.

— The only positive difference is that if you are beaten up in Poland or something else happens to you, the police will take your report and open a case instead of saying something like, “Well, look at how you’re dressed.”

Jan has heard stories of Belarusian authorities refusing to accept such reports, covering up cases, or even blackmailing such people and trying to recruit them for their own purposes.

— I have never been in situations like that in either Belarus or Poland. But it seems to me that the Polish justice system is a little more decent. And even if a particular official refuses to open a case, for example, you can take it to a higher level and file a complaint—and you will be heard, the interviewee says.

A drunk man asked, “Are you gay?”

Jan’s only encounter with the Polish police was when about 2,000 zlotys were stolen from him. He recalls being nervous when he filed the report, but the investigator was polite and tried to reassure him.

— At one point he said, “Don’t worry. Here, the police usually work for the people, not against them.” It was clear that he was familiar with the situation in Belarus, Jan recalls of the conversation. — He told me several times that everything would be fine. He answered all my questions, even though he was clearly very tired.

Jan has not encountered any homophobia in Poland. He recalls only one strange incident. A drunk man struck up a conversation with him in English outside a store.

— He asked, “Are you gay?” I found the whole situation very funny. I laughed and said, “Yes, so?” After that, he left, the interviewee says.

Nevertheless, the rise in right-wing sentiment makes Jan uneasy.

— I can’t say I feel safe in Poland, he says. — But not because I’m queer—because I’m not Polish.