Green Party leader Zack Polanski has recalled being left devastated by a homophobic attack. 

Polanski was elected as leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in a landslide election in September last year. He is a public supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, being gay himself, and a staunch supporter of trans rights. 

In an interview with Attitude, to celebrate his place on its Attitude 101 Trailblazer of the Year list, the leader revealed that as a teen he was the victim of a homophobic attack. 

“I felt, like, a smack on the head and [someone] shouting ‘f*****!’ I fell to the ground and kept being kicked. I just remember crawling up into a ball and hoping it was going to stop.”

Polanski said he went to hospital but never told his parents about the incident. 

He explained: “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.”

Section 28 banned what the Tories called the promotion of homosexuality by schools and local authorities. 

The law was repealed on 21 June, 2001, in Scotland, and on 18 November, 2003, it was taken off the statute books across the rest of the UK. 

Elsewhere in the interview, Polanski described his approach as “bold politics”, meaning that he works directly with communities while aiming to focus policies away from “the rich who are hoarding that power and that wealth”. 

In January, Polanski showed his support for London’s LGBTQ+ community by turning up at a bar to party with them. 

Polanski joined clubbers for the launch of his party’s Green Space – a new nationwide community initiative from the Green Party. All money raised from the event will go towards getting Greens elected.