Russian deputies on Friday approved a law against transgender people, prohibiting their transitions and in particular prohibiting their right to adopt children, in the midst of an ultra-conservative turn since the offensive in Ukraine.
“This decision protects our citizens, our children,” Vyacheslav Volodin, president of the lower house of Parliament (Duma), said on the Telegram chain, while changes in marital status, surgical operations and hormonal treatments were made accessible. . Russia after the fall of the USSR.
conservative spin
But since the attack in Ukraine, authorities have ramped up conservative measures, particularly against LGBT+, saying they want to stamp out behavior they see as deviant and imported from the West.
The Russian security services (FSB) even arrested a transgender activist accused of “high treason” for the benefit of Ukraine on Thursday. He faces life in prison.
To justify this bill, Vyacheslav Volodin assured on Friday that gender reassignment surgeries had skyrocketed in the United States in the last ten years.
“What a monstrous trend! This is a path that leads to the degeneration of a nation. This is unacceptable for us,” Vyacheslav Volodin pleaded.
Before the Duma, he also argued that “Sodom” would only remain in Russia if the country adopted laws similar to those of European countries, referring to this mythical city of the Bible sometimes associated, according to interpretations, with violence and homosexuality. .
Prohibited hormonal therapies surgical operations
The bill passed its third and final reading. Now it must be validated by the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, and then signed by President Vladimir Putin to take effect, two steps that are often mere formalities.
In a press release published on Friday, the Duma specifies that the text prohibits “any medical intervention” for gender reassignment, in particular surgical operations and hormonal therapies. It will also be prohibited to change the gender designation on identity documents.
Medical exceptions, by decision of a special commission, will be possible in case of “congenital anomalies” in children or genetic or endocrine diseases, specifies the Duma.
Marriages involving a transgender person will be “annulled” after the law takes effect, the State Duma says. Finally, transgender people will also be barred from having custody or adopting children in Russia.
The vice-president of the Duma and supporter of the bill, Pyotr Tolstoy, clarified that this latest measure is not retroactive and that Russian transgender people who have already adopted children will not lose custody of them.
“Enemies of the People”
Before the approval of the text, Ian Dvorkine, a 32-year-old psychologist who runs a Russian NGO that helps transgender people, the T Center, told AFP that he feared an increase in suicides with this law.
The Russian state now designates transgender people “as ‘enemies of the people’, disenfranchises them, supports them and outlaws them,” he laments.
Banning hormone therapy risks “feeding the black market for hormones” and consuming it without medical advice would pose serious risks, warns Ian Dvorkine.
Since 2013, a law in Russia has already prohibited the “propaganda” of “non-traditional sexual relations”, a text denounced by NGOs as an instrument of LGBT+ repression.
In December the application of this law was considerably expanded. Now it prohibits LGBT+ “propaganda” for all audiences, while before it only affected minors.
Source: BFM TV
