Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation that bans gender-affirming medical practices in the country on Monday. This unanimous decision by the parliament’s upper and lower houses was another striking blow to the already vulnerable section of the LGBTQ+ community of Russia. The act passed marked the final stop of the years of anti-LGBTQ+ bills, which aimed at cracking down on the existing laws on the rights of their community both legal and societal.
The New LGBTQ+ Legislation
The bill bars transgenders in Russia, to engage in medical interventions that change the sex of a person, except in the cases of congenital anomalies. Under this legislation, any such person would not be able to change their gender in the official documents and public records. Taking things further, the act states that any marriage involving people of “changed gender” will be officially annulled and it also forbids transgenders to foster or adopt children.
The ban is in accordance with the Kremlin’s ambition to sustain and protect the Russian “traditional values” of family and safeguard their citizens from Westernization. This Westernization, or what Kremlin leaders call, the “Western Anti-Family” ideology, describes gender transitioning as a form of pure satanism.
However, according to the Australian scholar Dennis Altman, LGBTQ rights have become a “maker of modernity” and are increasingly used as a significant factor in liberal democracies.
Photo Source: Human Rights Watch
© 2020 Aleksey Nikolskyi/Sputnik via AP Images
The Gay Propaganda in Russia
The journey of Russian leaders cracking down the legal and societal LGBTQ+ rights has been almost a decade-long one. The notions and practices of the community are not very popular amongst the leaders of the country and the alliance between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church has seen to it since 2013.
Kremlin in 2013 passed legislation that banned any public exposure or endorsement of anti-traditional sexual relations in minors. In December 2022, the ban became applicable to any age group nationwide.
The extent of “gay propaganda” in the country was allegedly to muster conservative support at home and draw a clear distinction between Russia and the West, positioning Russia as the protector of traditional and conservative values.
Such policies have been at the heart of the nation’s domestic politics and foreign engagement. In 2020, they went as far as terming the Russian LGBT Network, an LGBTQ umbrella organization, a “foreign agent” which there, indirectly implies spying connotations.
‘They sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature.’
Vladimir Putin (SOURCE: HUMAN RUGHTS WATCH)
The Rights and Responses
It would be a situation of utter hopelessness for children and teenagers in Russia, who would not be able to get any help. Doctors and transgender and LGBTQ rights activists have expressed their concerns about the opening of black markets for hormone substitutes in case of a lack of medical facilities in the country. It might also spike suicide rates among children and teens who would have no idea what to do next to embrace their identities. The act has undoubtedly pushed back the extent of LGBTQ rights their community had acquired.
In response to the decision taken by Kremlin in 2022, the Ukrainian lawmakers proceeded to legalize same-sex civil partnerships in March 2024, calling Putin’s leadership homophobic and differentiating themselves from the Russians.
Amidst all the he-said-she-said, it is an undeniable fact that human rights in Russia are at stake, no matter what community the ‘humans’ belong to at the end of the day. The act passed refrains a certain set of people from enjoying the basic human rights of marriage and adoption.
Unfortunately, Russia isn’t alone in the race to safeguard its “traditional family values”.
The citizens of Russia as well as the world is waiting and watching to see the extent Putin’s government, like many others, will go to promote conservative values.
