Campaigners say LGBTI freedoms are at their lowest point in staunchly Catholic country under nationalist Law and Justice government

Thousands of people have marched with rainbow flags through Warsaw in a sign of defiance against a rising tide of extremism under Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice government.

Speeches at the start of the Equality parade – which began at the symbolic Palace of Culture and ended with a “beach party” across the Vistula river – warned of LGBTI freedoms being at their lowest point for two decades in the staunchly Catholic country.

“We are fed up with waiting for change. This government is hostile but it wasn’t much better under the previous (liberal) one,” said activist Hubert Sobecki, 33, whose group Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love does not exclude) wants marriage rights for gay and lesbian people.

“Now we have simply decided to end the softly-softly approach and call for full marriage rights. We are not even talking to the politicians. We are addressing ordinary people. We want them to get used to it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Participants at the parade in Warsaw. Photograph: Jacek Turczyk/AFP/Getty Images

Small groups of counter-demonstrators, dressed in black with printed Celtic crosses or in camouflage gear, dotted the route. Their apparent attempts to charge into the parade were blocked by riot police. One woman brandishing a placard reading “Men together is against God’s will” came under a gale of kisses blown by marchers.

In contrast, 25-year-old Joanna, who is transgender and arrived in the capital a few days ago, said the parade was “the best day ever”. She is staying in a secure hostel after enduring years of violence and bullying from her parents in southern Poland. “Today I made my first friends – people like me,” she said.

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Numbers of marchers were swollen by heterosexual people carrying rainbow umbrellas. They were the supporters of the small Razem party and of KOD – the grassroots Committee for the Defence of Democracy which in recent months has staged mass demonstrations against controversial legal changes since the Law and Justice government came to power in October 2015. Women’s groups and a large contingent of LGBTI activists from neighbouring Germany joined the march, as did several foreign diplomats.

The parade was staged against the backdrop of a perceived rise in hostility towards LGBTI rights under the Law and Justice government. The current Polish parliament has no transgender or openly gay members and there are few “out” figureheads in Polish society.

On Saturday, in a letter published in Gazeta Wyborcza, 100 prominent Poles urged more people to break the taboo and come out. Signatories included the gay mayor of Słupsk, Robert Biedroń, and the priest Krzysztof Charamsa, who rose to prominence last year when he was dismissed from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for coming out as a gay man.

But little is likely to change amid rising approval ratings for the Law and Justice government. Politicians frequently refer to their Catholic faith as a guiding principle in their decisions.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A recent survey ranked Poland among countries offering LGBTI people the least legal protection in the EU. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this year, groups calling for a total ban on abortion marched through Warsaw. While no Law and Justice politicians have made explicitly homophobic statements, LGBTI rights are simply not on the government’s agenda.

Last October the president, Andrzej Duda, blocked a bill that would have granted transgender people a legal existence, sparing them from needing to sue their parents if they want to change their name and gender on birth certificates.

Law and Justice has brought the attorney general’s office into the justice ministry, leading to protests from human rights groups and scrutiny from European bodies. Last month, the government scrapped a parliamentary commission on minority and human rights.

One remaining senior civil servant, ombudsman Adam Bodnar, does have the power to bring cases – such as those affecting ethnic minorities and LGBTI rights – to the constitutional tribunal. But this, the highest court in the land, is currently paralysed after the government changed its rules of operation and appointed new judges.

Very few homophobic crimes are registered by the authorities – seven in 2014 and five in 2015. One of the reasons given for the low level of reporting is that LGBTI rights are not inscribed in law. A recent survey ranked Poland among countries offering LGBTI people the least legal protection in the EU.

But activists say they are under the impression attacks have increased since Law and Justice came to power. This year, the offices of two groups, the Campaign Against Homophobia and Lambda, have suffered vandalism ranging from broken windows to hate graffiti.

Hate crimes in the broadest sense – often carried out by nationalist extremists against immigrants – are on the rise in Poland. A report to parliament in April found that 1,548 such crimes were reported to the police in 2015 – close to double the number reported the year before.

• This article was amended on 12 June 2016. An earlier version incorrectly described Poland’s prime minister, Beata Szydło, as an ordained deacon in the Roman Catholic church.