Mikhail Murashko made a statement about the creation of such an institution, answering a question from State Duma deputy Anatoly Wasserman during the first reading in the State Duma of a bill banning transgender transition.
“Now there is an instruction from the president to create on the basis of our federal Center for Psychiatry [named after Serbsky] an additional institute to study not only these, but also a number of [other] behavioral areas, including social behavior. Therefore, this direction will also be further taken into obligatory scientific study, in addition to what we are doing today,” Murashko said.
Nef Cellarius, Transgender Equal Counseling Program Coordinator, LGBTQ+ Outreach Group
“At the moment, in Russian psychiatry, only transgenderism is considered a “diagnosis”. Russia uses the outdated international classification of diseases ICD 10, in which homosexuality is already removed from the list of diseases, but there is a diagnosis of F64.0, “Transsexualism”.
Modern medicine considers the “treatment” of transgenderness to be actions aimed at reducing gender dysphoria: hormone therapy, the opportunity to socialize in the desired gender role, surgical interventions aimed at correcting the appearance of the body. Yes, it didn’t seem to you – considering the bill “on the ban on sex change”, the government proposes to ban the “treatment”, which is recommended by Russian psychiatrists.
When we hear about the “cure” for homosexuality, it is important to understand that homosexuality is not a disease. This means that any attempt to somehow “fix” or “cure” a homosexual person is conversion therapy. The same applies to attempts to "fix" a transgender person.
Conversion therapy is a direct violation of human rights, it is legally prohibited in many countries of the world, and in some countries it is equated with torture. Unfortunately, now in Russia there are indeed statements that can be interpreted as proposals to return to this monstrous practice.
Separately, I want to emphasize this. Murashko said: "the creation of an institute to study not only these, but also a number of behavioral areas, including social behavior." Unfortunately, this can be understood in such a way that (if such an institution is created) punitive psychiatry will be used not only for transgender or homosexual people, but also for any people whose “public behavior” does not like the state – oppositionists, eco-activists .. . anyone.
In the USSR, there was already a similar practice. And it seems to me that having “tested” punitive psychiatry on LGBTQ+ people, it will be very easy for the state to switch to cis-hetero people. That's why we can't be silent now."
Maxim Olenichev, Russian lawyer, human rights activist
At the moment, there is no reliable information that the state creates methods of conversion therapy or in any way supports existing ones. From the dialogue of the State Duma deputy Anatoly Wasserman and the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Mikhail Murashko, it can be concluded that the State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry. V.P. Serbsky is the leading scientific institution in psychiatry in the country, researches questions of human behavior, "including social behavior." The sphere of gender identity does not refer to social behavior. This is a question of self-identification of a person. At the same time, conversion therapy is aimed at artificially correcting the gender identity of a particular person outside of social behavior.
From this, I conclude that the dialogue that took place cannot be recognized as an attempt to introduce conversion therapy in Russia at the state level. There are no facts of such attempts. Saying otherwise unreasonably raises the anxiety of transgender people.
The sphere of gender identity does not refer to social behavior. This is a question of self-identification of a person.
Yes, after the adoption in Russia of a new law “ on the ban on gay propaganda ”, which entered into force on December 5, 2022, against the backdrop of a wave of populism, State Duma deputies did not abandon the idea of adopting new laws to restrict and discriminate against LGBT people. Among them is the bill they are currently considering to ban the trans-passage. And it would seem that in this logic the state can raise the issue of introducing anti-scientific ideas about conversion therapy at the state level and with the support of the Russian Ministry of Health. However, there is no evidence of such actions of the state.
Such practices have long been condemned in the medical community as violations of human rights. In addition, there is not a single reliably proven fact of the “correction” of sexual orientation or gender identity as a result of the influence of psychiatrists on LGBT people in the world.
At the same time, there are private clinics in Russia where, at the insistence of their parents, LGBT teenagers are placed to “correct” their sexual orientation or gender identity. From a human rights perspective, such practices are torture, which is prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Russia has pledged to comply with it.
In such private clinics, against the will of LGBT adolescents and already adults, they are kept locked up, in conditions of lack of freedom, handcuffed and hung up , forcibly forced to take drugs that do not “cure”, but cripple the health of adolescents. For example, such "centers" are common in the Caucasus and other regions where patriarchal views are strong. The activity of such centers has nothing to do with either law or medicine. Under the guise of “treatment”, they not only cripple the fate of LGBT people, but also swindle hundreds of thousands of rubles from relatives, actually deceiving them: they cannot “cure” homosexuality or transgenderness, no one has succeeded.
"Return to Soviet practices of 'correcting' people's behavior"
I think that Murashko in the State Duma spoke in general terms, which do not confirm the introduction of conversion therapy at the state level. However, he could talk about a return to Soviet practices in the study of people's social behavior and its possible future "adjustment". Russian authorities are not interested in LGBT issues, they are used to divert the attention of people in the country from the internal failures of the Russian authorities and Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine. And the authorities fear the emergence of new protests, which they have managed to suppress over the past few years and destroy civil society in Russia. Therefore, Murashko could talk about approaches to punitive psychiatry, but not specifically to LGBT people (in fact, the authorities are not interested in this issue, but pretend to switch public attention to the issues of “gay propaganda” invented by the authorities), but in relation to individual active citizens in the country.