Green Party chief left devastated by homophobic assault
Politician Zack Polanski has experienced first hand homophobia, recalling an attack he faced in Manchester as a teenager and why he didn’t tell his parents.
Green leader Zack Polanski suffered a homophobic attack as a teen(Image: Zack Polanski photographed by David Reiss for Attitude)
Green Party leader Zack Polanski has recalled a devastating homophobic attack that left him fearing for his life.
Six months since being elected the Salford born politician has opened up about the extreme prejudices he faced holding hands with another man as a teen.
Polanski recalled: “I felt, like, a smack on the head and [someone] shouting ‘f*got!’ I fell to the ground and kept being kicked. I just remember crawling up into a ball and hoping it was going to stop.”
The Member Of The London Assembly, who has been named Attitude 101 Trailblazer of the Year, went to hospital but never told his parents.
He told Attitude : “This was around [the] Section 28 [era]. You weren’t [finding community] in school; it didn’t feel like there were community support groups. The way I was finding out who I was was through bars and nightclubs, which is a pretty unacceptable place for a 14, 15, 16-year-old to be hanging out.”
Polanski has spoken of his desire to introduce ‘Bold Politics’ in hope of re-imagining capitalism and wrestle the focus of policies away from “the wealthy who are hoarding that power and that wealth”.
He’s waded into the illegal crossings debate and believes he has the answer to stop boats arriving on UK shores: “I really want to stop the boats. Let’s make sure that we have a processing centre in Calais. That’s not some kind of dream.
“We had serious conversations about opening one up until 2016 when the Conservative Party deliberately shut that down because they wanted to create a backlog of people seeking asylum so they could take pictures and say that the country is being invaded, as opposed to dealing with the actual problems, with the problems of austerity.
“It was a very useful distraction and division technique.”
In December 2025 the 43-year-old visited asylum camps in Calais, France to experience the conditions first hand: “People are just kept in this purgatory where they’re being treated abominably, and then when they do get on the small boat, the majority of the small boats are being driven by children who are being offered free passage.
“Their families want them to get out of Calais because it’s so awful that they’re more willing to put them on the boat where there’s a good chance they might die in freezing cold water, than have them remain in the unimaginable circumstances they are. That’s how grim Calais is.”
The Attitude 101 is an annual list of 100 LGBTQ+ trailblazers across industries such as Travel, Business, Film, TV & Music; Fashion. Each category showcases 10 remarkable individuals who have demonstrated outstanding achievement and leadership in their areas of expertise. The list is completed by the Attitude 101 Trailblazer of the Year – a leading light whose outstanding work and cultural impact has helped move LGBTQ+ representation forward.
This year’s recipient is Zack Polanski, who in the six months since being elected leader of the Green Party, has upended the political arena and Green Party membership is now surging to over 190,000.
The Attitude March/April issue is out now.
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