Monika: Maria Jadwiga Minakowska is a historian, genealogist, and philosopher known for her groundbreaking work in Polish genealogy. She earned a PhD in classical philosophy from Jagiellonian University. Her biggest achievement is the "Great Genealogy by Minakowski," a massive database tracing the connections of nearly a million people.
Her passion for history and ancestry has helped countless individuals discover their roots, and in recognition of her work, she received the Decoration of Honor Meritorious for Polish Culture in 2016. In 2024, Maria publicly embraced her identity as a transgender woman. In this interview, we are going to touch upon her fascinating career, personal journey toward womanhood, and the importance of knowing where we come from. Hello Maria!
Maria: Hello, it’s my pleasure to talk to you. I decided to make everything public regarding my professional career and my private life, especially my transition. It’s like writing memoirs, both for future and present generations, so I will happily share with you as much as possible.
Monika: Most people know their grandparents, maybe even their great-grandparents at best. For you, it's different.
Maria: Some forty years ago, when I was a teenager, long before the Internet appeared, my grandfather gave me the family tree he had made. This sparked my interest in genealogy, which quickly burst into great flames. My grandfather’s knowledge covered times from the beginning of the 19th century (about a hundred years before he was born). I was able to extend it further, to the early Middle Ages.
Monika: You are related to Hedwig of Silesia, a medieval duchess who was later canonized as a saint, known for her deep piety and charitable works in Silesia through monastery foundations. How does it feel to share blood ties with such a remarkable historical figure?
Maria: As far as I know today, she is my ancestor in the 24th generation in two ways, in the 25th generation in another two ways, and in the 26th generation also in 2 ways, so in my full ancestor tree, she takes at least six places. She was an eminent figure, and since then, the name Hedwig (Polish: Jadwiga) became common in Poland. I took the name as my new middle name. However, the elites used to marry within their own circle, so of course, I have many other great and famous women among my ancestors.
Even before I realized and admitted to myself that I am a woman too, I fiercely fought against the idea that male ancestry is somehow better than female or mixed lines. In one of my last scientific papers, I even proved that the reality was just the opposite: In the Polish-Lithuanian Senate between the 16th and 18th centuries, female ancestry (mother, grandmothers, etc.) was more important for one's career than the male line (see: House of Networks: the Polish-Lithuanian Senate (1569–1795) as Parliamentary Representation of the National Social Network (of Women?)).
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| "The Polish legal system does not have any notion of a transgender person." |
Monika: I left Poland as a child, so I've been observing the Polish transgender community from abroad. This distance makes it difficult for me to draw any conclusions about whether Poland is trans-friendly or not. Let's start with the legal aspects. I’ve read that the gender affirmation process is still not regulated by Polish law, and transgender individuals have to sue their parents in order for a court to legally recognize their gender. It’s the most absurd procedure I’ve ever heard of.
Maria: My parents are no longer alive, so I will be suing a proxy (the court will designate a legal guardian for them). In the early 1990s, just after the end of communism, the Supreme Court in Poland ruled that even if the issue of sex/gender identity is not regulated by law, it is so important that there must be some way to deal with it. You can call it a patch: the legal loophole has been patched in such a way that I must prove that my parents were wrong in claiming that their child was born male. I have to provide medical documentation, and if the court admits that the documentation is correct, it annotates my birth certificate.
The Polish legal system does not have any notion of a transgender person, so if everything goes as desired, I will have a birth certificate which (in concise form) states that I was born female, and from the legal point of view, I will be just considered as “assigned female at birth.” The full version of my birth certificate will always contain the history of changes, but usually, the concise form (in its current state) is enough.
We can say, then, that however cumbersome and difficult the current system is to pass, the final result is quite desirable - unless you are non-binary or gender-fluid, of course. But as I consider myself 100% a woman, I am happy that after this procedure, I will be legally 100% a woman, too.
Monika: I’m curious why the wind of change hasn’t blown in favor of transgender people. During this time, Poland saw its first transgender female member of parliament, Anna Grodzka, and transgender women even appeared on TV shows like Top Model. On the surface, it seemed like there were some beacons of hope for progress, but this hasn’t translated into any real legal advancements.
Maria: I feel that this is a generational issue. When baby boomers in Western countries fought for the sexual revolution around 1968, our baby boomers (my parents’ generation) were fighting against communism, and the Catholic Church was the main anti-communist actor. Our social revolt was not against but in favor of standard morality.
On the other hand, people in Poland were never prudish like Americans, for instance. Being gay was never a crime in Poland, and there has never been any law criminalizing crossdressing. Another key issue is that we are used to strictly distinguishing between the law and custom. The law was often imposed by foreign powers, and disobeying the law was never considered immoral. You should do what you are supposed to do, and not what is considered legal.
So the main problem for adult transgender people, as I see it, is a lack of social norms and people who are examples to follow. Before I came out in June 2024, I have NEVER met any transgender person whose transgender history I could be aware of. I knew that they were somewhere - abroad or in some fringes of society (like artists or far-left political parties), but I have never gotten in touch with them. And I believe that for most people in my generation (born in the 1970s and 1980s), a transgender person is a mythical beast: something you have heard of but have never seen with your own eyes.
And, sadly, people are often scared of such mythical beasts. They are afraid that they will be forced to change their way of life, that things will never be what they used to be. And, while we have democracy now, the politicians either do not have the courage to oppose these fears or, even worse, they use these fears for their own sake.
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| "I see my mission as the education of adults." |
Monika: What about the healthcare system? Is it equipped to provide proper medical services to the transgender community?
Maria: As I said, from the legal point of view, there are no transgender people in Poland. The Polish language does not even have a term similar to the current American notion of “gender.” In Polish, as in Latin, “gender” (“rodzaj gramatyczny”) is a linguistic term. In the Polish language, even words like “I went” have different forms: for a male, “poszedłem,” and for a female, “poszłam.” There is a neuter gender, “poszłom,” too, which was actually never used in the first person until some non-binary persons started to use it quite recently.
So, for the medical system, there are no transgender persons - there are only people whose sex was misdiagnosed at birth. Now, before legal transition, I am 100% male, who suffers from some psychological problems, who may have depression or gender dysphoria. When the court changes my sex designation, I will be 100% female.
So now, in my case, an orchiectomy (removal of the testicles) is a crime unless I have cancer. When I am a woman, it will be completely legal (because no one expects testicles in a healthy female body). While ordinary women in their fifties are eligible for hormone therapy, I will be too, of course, at a discounted rate. And so on.
Monika: Recently, you've been very active in the Polish media, giving interviews and becoming a public figure. So, whether intentionally or unintentionally, you've become the face of the Polish transgender community. Are you comfortable with this?
Maria: I have always been a public figure. I am less than a year younger than Elon Musk, and when he joined PayPal in 1999, I was already a PhD in philosophy, and I worked at Onet.pl (Polish counterpart to Yahoo!), supervising both its Finance site and free email business. The Polish internet business was never as lucrative as the American or Western European markets, so we were never rich, but we, the people from old Onet, formed a counterpart to the “PayPal mafia.” I have my own online business, too (building genealogical databases at Wielcy.pl), and I am still active in scientific research.
Therefore, I have too much to lose by going stealth with my gender transition. So, from the very beginning, I decided to be fully open about it. If everybody knew me as male, now they should know both that I am female and also that I am still the same person. People should know and accept that Marek was not replaced by Maria, but that Marek transitioned to Maria.
And I found great value in it. I believe that people should see how a transition is done. If I can serve as an example for anybody, let it be. I can afford it. Actually, I have nothing to lose by doing it in public and much to gain - maybe not for myself but for others. I have much to gain for future transgender people in Poland.
Monika: I don’t know if you agree, but I find Polish society a bit conservative, especially in smaller towns. However, I think the biggest hope lies in the younger generation. I often meet up with my sister's family, and her teenage kids - my two lovely nieces - are incredibly accepting and empathetic. They know I’m trans, but to them, I’m just the best auntie in the world. My sister’s husband isn’t exactly thrilled about meeting me, to put it very mildly, but he's outnumbered by all the ladies at home, so I’m comfortable with the situation. So, sooner or later, the change for the better is definitely coming.
Maria: Yes, everything I said applies to people in their forties or older, maybe thirty-somethings, too. The younger ones, who were born after the fall of communism, have lived in a completely different situation. As far as I can see, for people under 20 today, being transgender is quite an acceptable way of life. My younger sister, who has a degree in psychology and works as a high school psychologist, used to say half-jokingly that half of her pupils are non-binary.
But… but young people still have their parents, their teachers, their in-laws, or just other officials whom they must deal with. So even if their friends and siblings are perfectly okay with them being trans, young trans people often suffer from rejection from their parents or a lack of support from their teachers or various institutions. Therefore, I see my mission as the education of adults because the needs are great here.
END OF PART 1
All photos: courtesy of Maria Jadwiga Minakowska.
© 2025 - Monika Kowalska
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