After Banning Transgender Operations: How Russia’s War Against LGBT is Continuing?

In a unanimous vote, Russian lawmakers approved a bill last week that would outlaw any form of sex change, a move that supporters of President Vladimir Putin said was needed to protect the nation from “Western anti-family ideology.”

The legislation, which passed its first reading in the lower house (the State Duma) of Parliament (the Federal Assembly), would ban “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person” and “the state registration of a change of gender without an operation.”

Pyotr Tolstoy, the deputy speaker of the lower house, said that the bill would “erect a barrier” against what Putin had called a Western threat to Russia’s “traditional values.”

The bill also appeared to address a concern among some lawmakers that Russian men were using gender reassignment certificates to dodge the draft for the war in Ukraine, according to the Kommersant newspaper, which cited an unnamed source in Parliament.

“In connection with the special operation, many young people have gone to private clinics for gender reassignment in order to avoid being drafted,” the source said.

The bill still faces two more readings in the lower house, as well as approval by the upper house and Putin, but it is unlikely to encounter any resistance in becoming law.

 

Ukraine ‘Crusade’

As Russia waged a brutal war against Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has cast the conflict as a crusade to defend humanity’s soul from the West’s “satanic” embrace of LGBT rights.

In a speech on February 24, 2022, in which he announced a “special military operation” in eastern Ukraine—a euphemism for a full-scale invasion—he devoted a paragraph to denouncing the West’s attempts to “destroy our traditional values and impose on us their false values that would corrode.”

Putin’s rhetoric echoes that of Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, who suggested last year that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was triggered by gay pride parades in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

While homosexuality is not officially illegal in Russia, same-sex marriage is banned. Putin has long exploited the issue of LGBT rights to rally his conservative base and justify his aggression toward the West.

In 2013, he signed a law that prohibits the dissemination of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors, which has been used to crack down on LGBT activists and media outlets.

The law hindered access to information about non-traditional relationships and carries fines of up to one million rubles (about $15,000) or prison sentences of up to 15 years.

One example of its enforcement was the conviction of a woman in the city of Samara who had shared news and links about LGBT issues on social media platforms, including a referendum in Ireland on legalizing same-sex marriage and an exhibition in St. Petersburg about gay Russian teenagers.

 

New Regulations

The Russian Parliament passed a sweeping law that bans any public expression of non-traditional sexual orientations or gender identities, as well as any information that encourages sex change or sexual assault on children.

The law, which was approved unanimously by the lower house, imposes hefty fines on individuals, officials, and organizations that violate the ban, and applies to media, Internet, cinema, advertising, books, and audiovisual services.

The law defines propaganda as “publishing information or performing acts of a public nature aimed at forming non-traditional sexual attitudes, promoting them and distorting the idea of social equality and traditional sexual relations.” The ban includes images and descriptions of non-traditional sexual relations, effectively prohibiting minors and adults from watching, reading, or listening to such content.

The law also tightens the penalties for promoting sexual assaults on children and redefining sex (changing it), raising the fines to 800 thousand rubles ($10,600) for ordinary people, two million rubles ($26,500) for officials, and 10 million rubles ($132,500) for companies and institutions.

The law is in line with the constitutional amendments adopted last year that effectively banned gay marriage in Russia.

Supporters of the law say it is necessary to protect traditional values and children from harmful influences and provocations.

Ivan Sergeyev, a legal affairs expert, said in media statements that the new legislation “does not aim by any means to move to a system of censorship, but to protect traditional values as well as children and all segments of society from provocations and destructive and negative influence of content.”

The law will now go to the upper house of Parliament and then to President Vladimir Putin’s signature. It is expected to face legal challenges from activists and international organizations.

 

Crackdown

Another parliament bill, which passed the first reading in the lower house (the State Duma) on October 27, 2022, would ban any “information that denies family values” and “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations,” regardless of the age of the audience.

The measures, proposed by lawmakers Alexander Khinshtein and Nina Ostanina, would effectively outlaw any positive portrayal of LGBT people in the media, arts, and public events and could lead to fines or arrests for those who violate them.

The bills are part of Putin’s strategy to appeal to conservative voters and divert attention from the costly war in Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting government forces since 2014.

The bills also contrast with Ukraine’s efforts to embrace European values and protect LGBT rights, despite widespread social conservatism.

The former Soviet republic has hosted Pride parades for years, and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, recently suggested legalizing same-sex marriage.

Russia’s move to tighten its grip on LGBT people follows a 2013 law that banned “gay propaganda” targeting children.

The 2013 law has also been used to target groups that support LGBT youth, such as Children-404, and censor films featuring gay characters, such as Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, which was given a 16+ rating in Russia.