(Reuters) – Russia’s lower house of parliament on Thursday unanimously approved on the second of three readings a draft law that would ban gender-affirming surgeries for transgender people.
The bill would prohibit medical workers from “performing medical interventions designed to change the sex of a person”, though it exempts surgery to treat congenital anomalies in children.
It would also bar people from changing their gender on official identity documents and would prohibit transgender people from adopting children. It would annul a marriage where one partner subsequently changed their gender.
Advocates of transgender rights in Russia have spoken out against the legislation, saying it will lead to an underground hormone drug market and a spike in attempted suicides among transgender teenagers.”This is a logical continuation of the repressive policies of the Russian government, not only against LGBTQI people, but against human rights, freedom of speech, and democracy,” Nef Cellarius of LGBT rights group Vykhod (“Coming Out”) told Reuters.
Last December, President Vladimir Putin signed a law expanding restrictions on the promotion of “LGBT propaganda,” effectively banning any public expression of their lifestyle by lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in Russia.
Putin has portrayed LGBT rights as evidence of moral decay in Western countries.
The third and final reading of the draft bill banning gender surgery is due on Friday, according to the Telegram channel of the lower house, the State Duma.
The bill must then be approved by the upper house of parliament and then signed into law by the president.
(This story has been corrected to make clear that new law would annul marriage where one partner then changed gender in paragraph 3)
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Gareth Jones)
