Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday, signed a legislature that bans people from officially or medically changing their gender. The act was unanimously passed by both houses of the parliament.
The law, which represents a crippling blow to the LGBTQ community in Russia, bans any medical procedures that would change the gender of a person and bans changing a person’s gender in official documents or public records. This includes taking hormonal therapy or seeking surgery to change one's gender. The only exception will be medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies, AP reported.
The law bars transgender people from becoming adoptive parents and annuls marriages in which one person has changed gender. The law, which goes into force immediately stems from the Kremlin’s crusade to protect what it views as the country’s “traditional values”.
According to legislators, the law safeguards Russia from ‘Western anti-family ideology’. Some of them have reportedly called gender transitioning ‘pure satanism’. Putin has been bringing down the whip on the LGBTQ community for a decade. Same-sex marriage was banned in Russia in 2020 and last year, Russia passed a law banning public displays and media portrayals of non-heterosexual identities.
