Anti-Queer Continuum: How the Lack of Inclusivity in Transitional Justice Resonates in Contemporary Poland

ABSTRACT This article examines how the omission of queer experiences from Poland’s transitional justice processes after the fall of communism has contributed to ongoing systemic discrimination and state-sponsored homophobia. Using Operation Hyacinth – a nationwide police action in the 1980s that targeted homosexual men for registration and surveillance – as a case study, it investigates the absence of truth telling, reparations and institutional acknowledgement within post-1989 democratic reforms. The article conceptualizes this exclusion as an ‘anti-queer continuum,’ whereby failure to address past injustices facilitates their reproduction in contemporary Poland, visible in anti-LGBTQ+ political rhetoric, the establishment of ‘LGBT ideology-free zones’ and persistent legal inequalities. Drawing on queer and feminist critiques of transitional justice, a systematic literature review and existing empirical and archival studies, the article argues for a rethinking of transitional justice frameworks to include sexual and gender minorities. It concludes that without queering transitional justice, cycles of queer erasure and violence will persist under the guise of democratic governance.