Russia has banned gender-affirming surgery and health care in a landmark bill that threatens to further endanger the country’s already marginalised and persecuted trans community, as part of the Kremlin’s increasingly aggressive anti-LGBTIQ agenda.
The bill was unanimously approved by Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, on Friday. Once it is signed by Putin and approved by the Senate, the upper house, it will become law.
The new legislation also bans changing gender markers and names in official documents, and prohibits transgender people from adopting children. Marriages are also automatically annulled if one partner changes their gender markers; this practice already occurred, but it is now official.
