BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — A transgender MP who was nominated by her party’s leader for the deputy speaker’s post in the Polish parliament lost her bid to fill the job after fellow MPs voted to keep the incumbent in office, Pink News reports.
Janusz Palikot, the leader of Palikot’s Movement, nominated Anna Grodzka for the job and called on incumbent Wanda Nowicka to stand down following revelations that she was in conflict with her party’s stance on taking bonuses.
Still, MPs voted overwhelmingly to keep Nowicka in the post.
“Is someone afraid of Anna Grodzka? Why you do not want to respect the tradition that every [political party] has the right to self-determination?” Palikot asked after the vote.
He said that the vote could tarnish the reputation of Polish politicians, who have come under fire recently for taking bonuses during a financial downturn.
According to the report, MP Krystyna Pawlowicz commented on Grodzka’s sex reassignment, reportedly saying the genetic code decides a person’s gender. “Let’s do a blood test. Nothing will change that, no operation.” Pawlowicz is also on record opposing gay marriage, saying gay people are of “no use whatsoever to society.”
Last month, the Sejm, or lower house of parliament, voted down three separate pieces of legislation that would have granted legal rights to unmarried couples, including gay couples. According to Pink News, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose Civic Platform produced the bills, had been urging other legislators to back the plan and “make the lives of ‘many Poles, also homosexual, more dignified.'”
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