July 16 () –
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced this Saturday that the new bill that has been approved by the lower house of the Russian parliament and which is expected to be passed by the upper house and the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, violates a wide range of rights of transgender people.
This project prohibits trans medical care, dissolves marriages of transgender people, prohibits changing gender markers in official documents and prevents trans people from adopting or assuming guardianship of children, as explained by the NGO in a statement.
“Russia has persistently attacked sexual and gender minorities for political purposes,” said Human Rights Watch LGBT rights director Graeme Reid, who added that “this legislation is the latest in a series of attacks on rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, this time under the rubric of state-incited transphobia”. “The bill must be withdrawn immediately,” he has ruled.
The bill would ban medical interventions comprehensive to internationally recognized standards of care for transgender people, including gender-affirming medications and surgery, and would also leave a loophole for non-consensual and medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex children; almost all of these procedures carry a significant risk of harm and can be safely deferred.
During the first reading of the bill, the vice-president of the State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, announced that this law is “another step to protect national interests” from “perversions”, dismissing “the concerns of the Ministry of Health and the scientific community that the approval of the law would generate ethical, medical and social problems, including an increase in suicides”, according to the organization.
HWR has explained that “the new laws are part of Russia’s intensifying crackdown on LGBT people.” Already in December 2022 the adopted legislation “expanded the prohibition on sharing positive and even neutral information about LGBT people, including gender transition.” Under this mandate, the Police detained activists who were protesting to put an end to this law.
“First, Russia tried to erase lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities from public view, and now they are targeting transgender people,” Reid said, adding that “Russia should reverse its scandalous politics and guarantee the rights to identity, family life and health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, starting by reversing the anti-trans law”.
