Paper short abstract:

I explore the Polish post-socialist transition through the lens of sexual citizenship to argue that practices and policies of HIV prevention encompass competing discourses of risk, discipline, and citizenship through which groups make claims of inclusion and exclusion within the body politic.

Paper long abstract:

In the late fall of 2004, the city of Kraków ceased cooperation with the local LGBT organization Lambda after it was revealed that this organization distributed material depicting homosexual acts while conducting an HIV prevention workshop for high school students. The city president and right-wing politicians accused the organization of "demoralizing" youth and violating the pro-family policies of the city. The workshop organizers countered that they were simply presenting medical information and looking out for the health needs of the city's gay citizens. To understand this controversy, this paper uses the analytical lens of sexual citizenship to explore arguments made about proper sexuality as key sites for enacting the processes of postsocialist transition in Poland. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork at HIV prevention programs, I argue that attention to sexuality, both as practiced identities and targets of policy development, can be used to further interrogate shifting definitions of what it means to be democratic and modern in the context of European Union expansion. Examining the practices and policies surrounding both hetero- and homo-sexuality within the context of HIV prevention in Poland, I reveal the competing discourses of risk, discipline, and citizenship through which various groups make claims of inclusion and exclusion within the body politic.