Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
Vladimir Putin has signed a law that bans people from officially and/or medically changing their gender. The act bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person” and changing the gender of a person in official documents or public records. However, medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies is an exception. The law invalidates marriages in which one person has changed gender and does not allow transgender people to be foster or adoptive parents.
The law was unanimously passed in both parliament houses. This move is another blow to Russia’s LGBTQ+ community.
The prohibition is said to stem from the government’s actions to protect what it views as the country’s ‘traditional values’. Legislators believe that the law is to safeguard the nation from “western anti-family ideology”, and some describe gender transitioning as “pure satanism”.
Russia’s suppression of the LGBTQ+ community started when Putin first proclaimed a focus on ‘traditional family values’, which was supported by the Russian Orthodox church. In 2013, they adopted a law that banned any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, the President pushed through constitutional reform that outlawed same-sex marriage and in 2022, he signed a law that bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among adults.