“There Is Nothing Like a Family”: Discourses on Families of Choice in Poland

In this article we showed how the notion of heteronormative citizenship embedded in the Polish Constitution was (re)produced in the public sphere, and how heteronormativity as an ideal was slowly undermined by the emergence of new narratives on LGBT families. We did so by first conducting a critical reading of the Polish Constitution, public opinion polls, national censuses, and so forth. Then we presented the results of a discourse analysis on families of choice in Poland from crucial public debates of the last decade. Through this we identified the main public strategies of silencing and excluding, its dynamics, main actors, possible changes, and shifts over time. The results of the research showed the change that occurred in the public discourse on LGBT families in the last decades in Poland moving from defining family in very conservative and traditional terms at the beginning of the 2000s to a more open definition of family in 2010–2011. However, they also demonstrate some undesired alliances among supporters and opponents of same-sex partnership and possible dangers of some strategies used by LGBT activists.