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lewanarta · 9 days ago

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Andrzej Stękała for Onet: "I would like to ask what Damian and I did to the president that he denied us basic rights, such simple safety." In an interview with Dawid Dudko, the Polish ski jumping medallist talks about the grief over his partner: "There are images of Damian's death that are stuck in my mind. There was no chance to save him."

Translation of the interview under the cut.

Dawid Dudko: Damian would like this interview?

Andrzej Stękała: I'm sure he would be sitting here next to me right now and together we would tell you about the eight years of our relationship and our plans to spend the rest of our lives together. For me we are still together, only Damian is no longer here, as if someone took him away from me.

Do you still cry a lot?

I try not to cry and look forward, go to trainings, meet people. People in general make me able to pull myself together somehow. The worst thing is when I'm left alone, then it's hard to bear it all, it gets really hard, so unbearable.

I guess it's good to let yourself cry, but it's also good to remember that the other person would like to see you happy, however difficult it is right now.

My loved ones tell me that they would like to see such a happy Andrzej, smiling like before. But right now I can't honestly be happy about anything. I would like to finish our house that Damian and I built together, I know he would like that.

After you started a relationship, you wanted to quit sports.

Well yes, I thought: what do you mean, a gay professional athlete! I imagined that if people found out, I'd be cancelled. I decided that if I must choose between love and work, the choice is obvious for me. It was thanks to Damian that I realised that if I wanted there to be a place for gay people in sport, I should do something myself.

And that something shouldn't be running away.

I think everyone wants to share their happiness with others, not hide your phone from your teammates in the locker room while your boyfriend texts you. That's how I behaved in the beginning, hiding my phone, constantly glancing behind me to see if maybe someone was looking and about to ask me something and I'd have to lie. I would go to training camps and hide. Separation from Damian was one thing, but even worse was the whole thing of hiding him from the world, as if I was going to do something bad with this love of mine to someone.

Were there fictional girlfriends?

I had a lot of female friends, I always enjoyed the company of girls, I just somehow never was drawn to them in the sense that I was drawn to colleagues. One day, around the time of primary school, I asked my mum if I could bring a girl home. I tried something with the girls, but of course nothing came out of it, because it couldn't come out.

It is said that mothers generally feel all this.

Mine felt it too. It was her I told first. We had a long conversation, she explained that she supported me, but that she wouldn't want anyone to hurt me when there is still a lot of homophobia around. She's a strong woman, she's been through a lot, I admire her. You have no idea how much time I spent doing this kind of assessment in my head, who I could possibly tell at the beginning, who wouldn't reject me and think horrible things about me, or would not call me names at all…

I have a very good idea.

Oh yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

Who was the first person you told at work?

My coach. He hugged me, told me it didn't change anything and that I was a f***ing awesome person.

And you got a big weight off your back.

How much can you live like that, purposely getting up early so no one gets suspicious that you live with the other guy? Because I told people I was living at my family home, and I was already with Damian at the time and we were renting a flat together.

And then you made a public coming out.

With that support from people close to me, not only family but also the guys I train with, it's been easier. My mates know that just because I'm gay doesn't mean you have to bit your tongue in front of me or not tell any jokes because it's not appropriate.

Because you have support and acceptance from them.

Well, I am very grateful to them for such openness. They don't allow themselves to be manoeuvred into political games.

What do you mean by political games?

You watch the news with your family, that family loves you, supports you, accepts you, and from the TV they hear that you are an ideology and a threat to the family. Our president denied the humanity of me too and the love of my life. It is known that many politicians play with homophobia, but this is the president of our country. And yet it was also the ‘scary’ gay man who was his source of national pride, shaking his hand.

Today, would you also shake hands with a president who threatened the nation with LGBT+ people?

I think I would. But I don't know if I would accept an individual state decoration from him, since who I am goes against his views. Today I would certainly like to talk to him, like a human being to human being. Because those few years ago, when he congratulated us on the team World Cup in Zakopane, the conditions for such a conversation were not there. And I was still sitting in the closet.

So what would you like to say to the president today?

I would like to ask what Damian and I did to the president that he denied us our basic rights, such simple safety. I would ask where the problem lies. Why the hatred? Mr President, you have a wife, your loved one. I also had a loved one, but officially we were strangers to each other. That really hurts.

And how do you feel this formal strangeness on a daily basis? Strangeness, let's be more precise, enforced by the lack of civil unions in Poland, the possibility of formalising the shared lives of two, adult, loving people.

There are images from Damian's death that have stuck in my mind. Certainly that moment when I found him at home, lying on the floor, and I tried to save him. But also the situation with the rescue helicopter, which I was afraid they wouldn't let me into, because I didn't formally have any rights to Damian. The doctors with everything headed to his mum.

Did you finally get into that helicopter?

Of course Damian's mum gave her consent, but it was no longer needed. There was no chance to save him.

Will you tell us what happened?

He suffered a heart attack. A few hours earlier we were still talking to each other, as if nothing was going to happen. Only in the morning, when I left for training, he was still asleep, so I didn't wake him up. I knew that when he got up he would make breakfast for the people who were building our house… Sorry, Dawid, it's still difficult to talk about it.

For me, the challenge in this conversation is not to cry myself. Thank you, Andrzej, for talking about all this publicly despite the difficulties. Because grief in LGBT+ relationships is still an almost absent topic in our country.

After all, we really don't want special treatment. It's just about what is due to adult, tax-paying, honest people. My coming out is also a reminder of this.

With it you also break with stereotypes. In the general awareness, an LGBT+ person is associated with the artistic world rather than the sporting world.

It's not worth hiding. Nothing bad happened to me at work when people found out who I was, I didn't experience anything that I could call homophobia in sport. In everyday life there are some offensive messages or comments. But should I care about someone who insults me anonymously from a fictitious account? You know, I think our national openness is much better than, for example, some politicians claim.

According to surveys, Poles are ready for civil unions more than some politicians are convinced. 'The LGBT community cannot expect me to force it or deal with their issues'. - Law and Justice presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki recently stressed.

It makes me want to cry when I hear such words.

We are talking during the Easter season. Did you celebrate this time with Damian somehow?

Yes, we were believers. I believe in God, I'm a Catholic, although it's getting harder and harder when you look at the Church. I go to church sometimes, but much more rarely than I used to. I try not to listen to sermons, because from the altar they can say really nasty things. I go for prayer. Damian and I used to go together.

Did you want to get married?

Damian proposed to me. See, I'm wearing a ring on my finger. We were waiting that maybe something in our country would change one day, we hoped we would live to see better times. We didn't want to go abroad and get married there, when in Poland such a wedding doesn't matter. As for the holidays, I don't generally associate them with the best things. Last Christmas we cried, had Christmas dinner and cried with my mum that Damian was gone.

When you acknowledge how difficult it is to maintain a relationship with the Church today, I am reminded of the words of Paweł Dobrowolski, the current director of Olszyn Jaracz Theatre, also a gay believer, who said in our interview: a Catholic also has his limits.

You could say that today's Church is testing our patience.

Damian had a Catholic funeral?

Yes, as a man of faith he would have wanted such a funeral. He was bid farewell by a good priest, because there are still such priests, after all. I assume that the priest knew very well that Damian and I were more than just friends. He kept looking at me during the funeral.

You could have said goodbye to your loved one. Many LGBT+ people in the current legal situation are sometimes deprived of this opportunity at all, they cannot go to the funeral of their partners, they are forbidden to do so by their formal family.

After my coming out, I got words of support from world-class ski jumping stars like Karl Geiger and Martin Schmitt. They said it could be easier for many people in Poland thanks to me. That's what I think about it too and that's why I'm sharing my lifetime loss with people now.

What are your plans, Andrzej?

I simply have to learn to live again, I just don't know how yet.

#ski jumping #andrzej stękała #andrzej stekala #team poland #msj

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