Russian lawmakers pass a bill that makes changing gender illegal and limits the rights of LGBTQ+ people
In a big blow to the LGBTQ+ community in Russia, lawmakers moved quickly to pass a strict bill that makes it illegal to change your gender. The bill is likely to pass its final reading with little resistance. It has parts that make marriages between people who have changed their gender illegal and bans transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents.
The bill makes it clear that any medical treatment that tries to change a person’s sex is illegal. It also makes it illegal to change a person’s gender on official papers and public records. The new parts of the bill change Russia’s Family Code even more. They say that marriages can be canceled if one person changes gender and that people who have “changed gender” can’t become foster or adopted parents, as reported by the AP.
Proponents of the bill say it is needed to protect Russia’s “traditional values” and protect the country from what they see as Western influences that promote a “anti-family ideology.” Some lawmakers have even described gender changing as “pure satanism.” But both people who work for LGBTQ+ rights and people in the medical field are very upset about the law.
Critics call the bill cruel and say that gender changing procedures should not be outlawed totally because they are important for people who want to live truly and find peace within themselves. With President Vladimir Putin’s decade-long focus on “traditional family values” and previous anti-LGBTQ+ laws like the “gay propaganda” law and the ban on same-sex marriage, the passing of this bill makes things even worse for LGBTQ+ people in Russia.
Russia’s military participation in Ukraine sped up the government’s war on LGBTQ+ rights. The government explained its actions as a way to protect itself from what it saw as Western debasement. Last year, the Russian government passed a law that forbids “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among adults. This means that movies, books, and other media can no longer show LGBTQ+ people in a good or neutral way.
