KRAKOW, Poland — Anna Grodzka is looking at the possibility of being the first transgender person to win a seat in the Polish Sejm (Parliament), after a new anti-clerical party stormed the national parliamentary elections winning an unprecedented third place finish.
Grodzka, 57, completed her gender reassignment surgery last year with the help of the Trans-Fuzja organization focused on gender change.
Topping the Palikot Movement party list in the devoutly Catholic southern city of Krakow — once home to the late Polish-born pope John Paul II — Ms. Grodzka was thrilled by Sunday’s strong showing at the polls.
“I’m not yet sure if I’ve been elected, but I’m very happy with the result scored by the Palikot movement,” she said at a jubilant election night celebration at Palikot Movement headquarters in Warsaw.
“If I’ll be elected in Krakow, I’ll be Poland’s first transgender woman, and the only transgender MP not only in Poland, but the entire world,” she said. “In New Zealand, there was Georgina Beyer, but she is no longer an MP since 2007,” Ms Grodzka added.
“Today, Poland is changing. I am the proof along with Robert Biedron, a homosexual and the head of an anti-homophobia campaign who ran for office in Gdynia,” a city on Poland’s Baltic coast.
The Telegraph (London)
Led by tycoon-provocateur Janusz Palikot, the Palikot Movement made a surprise breakthrough in its electoral debut Sunday by soaring to a third spot finish, and challenging Poland’s powerful Roman Catholic Church.
