We were delighted to take part in the international conference Queer: Present! Visibility Through the Body, held at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań on 25–26 June 2026. The conference brought together scholars from across Europe and beyond to explore queer visibility, embodiment, and resistance — and it was a pleasure to contribute two presentations rooted in our ongoing research.
On the first day, Agata Stasińska presented Relational Visibility and Trans Aging in Poland, proposing “relational visibility” as a framework for understanding how older trans individuals in Poland navigate gender affirmation through care relationships, kinship dynamics, and institutional constraints — challenging the assumption that visibility is simply a matter of coming out.
On the second day, Joanna Mizielińska delivered the conference’s second keynote lecture, Queer Families and Their Visibility Tactics. Drawing on data from her previous research project Families of choice in Poland as well as the current QUEERSHIP project, the lecture explored how LGBTIQ* families with children in Poland develop creative everyday tactics — from queering baptism to fictive marriages, from passing as a family to the use of eldercare as a route to recognition — to make their lives liveable in the absence of legal protection.
Together, the two presentations reflect a central thread running through QUEERSHIP’s work: that
visibility for queer people in Poland is not a single act, but an ongoing, relational, and deeply situated
practice.