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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Waldemar Zboralski (born 4 June 1960[1]) is a Polish veteran gay rights activist,[2][3][4] politician, and journalist.
Zboralski was born in Nowa Sól where he grew up and graduated from high school.
He became a victim to the secret Operation Hyacinth[5][6] organised by the Polish communist police. The purpose of the operation was to create a national database of all homosexuals and people who had some sort of contact with them.[7]
Zboralski arrived in Warsaw in 1986 and lived there for two years – from January 1986 to April 1988 – where he was an active participant and organizer of Warsaw gay movement.[4] In 1987, he was a co-founder and the first chairman of Warsaw Gay Movement.[8][9] In March 1988 Zboralski and a group of 15 people, including Sławek Starosta and Krzysztof Garwatowski, filed a formal application to register the Warsaw Gay Movement.[4] The application was rejected due to an intervention from General Kiszczak, Minister of Internal Affairs, for stated reasons of "public morality".[4]
Zboralski was called by Radio Free Europe's research as a member of “Independent movement in Eastern Europe” for the first time on 17 November 1988.[10]
According to Krzysztof Tomasik, author of the book "Gejerel. Mniejszości seksualne w PRL-u" ("Gayerel. Sexual minorities in PRL"), Zboralski was the "gay Wałęsa", "the main force behind Warsaw gay movement".[11]
Zboralski has been lobbying for the legalization of same-sex marriages in Poland, he was the first person to publish articles on this subject in the Polish press.[12]
In 2003 he was the first person to become an honorary member of a Polish LGBT organization, Campaign Against Homophobia.[13] In 2004, as an openly gay candidate of Reason Party, Zboralski was unsuccessful in elections to the European Parliament.[14][1] In 2005 he was an unsuccessful openly gay candidate of Union of the Left for the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament.[1]
On 12 October 2007 Zboralski married his partner Krzysztof Nowak in Great Britain as the first Polish gay couple married in that country.[15][16]
In 2020 he participated in Radio Maryja player for "conversion of as many people as possible from the sin of homosexuality".[17]
Currently he resides in England working as a registered nurse.[18]
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