Exploring the Spatial Dynamics of Community for the Gay and Queer Population in Kraków, Poland

Abstract The population of sexual minorities in Poland has struggled to achieve equal rights since Poland gained independence after the post-socialist era began in 1989. This article traces the evolution of the LGBTQ+ minority in Poland, including discriminatory acts against sexual minorities in 2020 (punctuated by the creation of ‘LGBT zones’ by local municipal governments) and the actions the LGBTQ+ community has taken against this oppression and to further its aims for equal rights. Queer urban theory is employed as a lens for examining post-socialist space in Poland’s cities and queer political economy theory is used to explain the socio-spatial formation of enclaves for sexual minorities. First, the article explores urban spatial dynamics of the gay and queer population and finds that LGBTQ+ spatial patterns are notably different in Poland’s post-socialist space compared to the Western gayborhood model and that urban spatial processes in cities in post-socialist states may preclude the establishment of gayborhoods as they developed in Western Europe and North America. Second, the article explores the positioning of spatial analysis in scholarship about sexual minorities in Poland and finds that since queer communities cannot be readily understood within the framework of Western European and North American cities, new models are needed to explain the understudied spatial aspects of the LGBTQ+ community in cities in post-socialist states and the concomitant dispersal rather than spatial concentration of people identifying as sexual minorities.