Poland's Gay and Trans MPs Take A Seat Against Bigotry

The first openly gay and transgender lawmakers to serve in Poland sat in the front row of Parliament earlier this week after a former president said that LGBT members should sit "behind a wall."

The members' protest came after former Polish president and Nobel Prize laureate Lech Walesea made the homophobic and transphobic statement last week, according to the Associated Press. Anna Grodzka, Poland's first transgender federal lawmaker, and Robert Biedron, the country's first gay federal lawmaker, sat together on the front bench after their party's leader Janusz Palikot relinquished his seat at the front to arrange this protest.

"Lech Walesa is an important symbol for us all and for the whole world," Biedron told The Associated Press before attending the session. "I respect him and I'd rather he used other words, words of acceptance and of respect for other people."