Russia’s President Vladimir Putin this Monday endorsed the entry into force of new legislation banning sex reassignment surgery in a new measure against the LGBTQ+ community in the Eurasian country.
The measure had already been approved last week by the Federation Council (upper house of the State Duma) and previously by the lower house (parliament) of the State Duma.
The bill, called “On the Basics of Protection the Health of Citizens of the Russian Federation”, was introduced in late May by a group of about 400 deputies from different political backgrounds.
The document contains an article that prohibits changing one’s sex, with the exception of surgical procedures aimed at treating congenital anomalies in children, which can be approved with the approval of a medical board.
The new law also prevents a citizen from changing their name in the civil registry on the basis of a medical certificate of gender reassignment issued by a doctor.
The adoption of people who have undergone such an operation is also prohibited.
Lawmakers consider the move to protect Russia from “western anti-family ideology”, with some describing the gender reassignment as “pure Satanism”.
The Russian authorities’ crackdown on LGBTQ+ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other gender manifestations) began a decade ago, when Putin first announced he would focus on “traditional family values” supported by the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 2013, the country introduced a law against homosexual “propaganda”, as Moscow calls it, to minors.
The law served as a pretext to ban gay pride marches and the display of rainbow flags, a symbol associated with the LGBTQ+ community.
Since 2020, the Russian constitution also stipulates that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, prohibiting same-sex marriage.
Source: DN
