A draft law has been submitted to the State Duma, which proposes amendments to the laws “On Health Care” and “On Acts of Civil Status”, completely prohibiting sex change both in the passport and through a surgical operation.
According to a post on the Telegram channel of the lower house of the Russian parliament, about 400 deputies were the authors of the bill. Earlier, Vedomosti reported that this document is the brainchild of State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.
One of the declared authors of the initiative, Volodin's deputy Pyotr Tolstoy, explained the need for amendments to the legislation, including the fact that "the desire of same-sex couples to adopt children" is at odds with the values and principles of the Russian Constitution. Thus, he views, for example, the union of a transgender woman and a cisgender man as the union of two men.
Sex reassignment surgery will only be allowed as a "treatment for congenital physiological abnormalities of sex formation in children." Permission for them will need to be obtained from the medical commissions of state institutions, the list of which will be approved by the Russian government.
Earlier, lawyer Maxim Olenichev, who works with LGBT persons, commented on this bill in a conversation with The Insider:
A transgender person does not just change the gender in documents at will, he is also born in the body of a different gender. If, for example, a person was born in a male body, but feels like a girl, then in this case there is gender dysphoria that can lead to suicide or the inability to adapt to modern society. That is why the institution of transgender transition exists in all developed countries.
In general, the state, by adopting this bill, discriminates against transgender people, trying to make them invisible. But this is impossible, because they are born, and in any case, they need the ability to change documents at their request. Its absence will lead to further growth of discrimination and stigmatization of transgender people in Russia and the restriction of their rights.
At the end of April, Russian Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuichenko said that, in his opinion, it is necessary to exclude the possibility of changing the sex in the passport for citizens who have not undergone the appropriate surgical intervention. Later, Kommersant wrote that in the near future a bill regulating these issues would be submitted to the State Duma.
In December 2022, Vladimir Putin signed into law a law completely banning the “propaganda” of non-traditional sexual relations and transgender transition. According to him, for the "propaganda" of LGBT people, pedophilia and gender reassignment among individuals of any age, a fine of 50,000 to 800,000 rubles can be imposed.