Russia introduces draft bill to ban gender-affirming surgery

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday (May 30) introduced a draft bill that would ban gender-affirming surgery. According to a report by the news agency Associated Press, the draft bill was submitted by 400 members of the 450-seat lower house - the State Duma. The bill would ban any gender-affirming surgery except the one intended to treat “congenital physiological anomalies.” The report said that such an exception would be regulated by dedicated medical panels that will be closely overseen by the government.

The bill would also ban legal name and gender changes in public records and official documents.

'Bill intended to protect Russia with its culture, family values': Lawmaker

Senior Russian lawmaker Pyotr Tolstoy, who is one of the authors of the draft bill, said on Tuesday the legislation is intended to protect Russia'scultural and family values and traditions and to stop the infiltration of the Western anti-family ideology.

This bill is the latest step in a Kremlin-orchestrated crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights. Itwould certainly win quick approval by the State Duma and the upper house before Russian President Vladimir Putin signs it into law. It reflects an increasingly intolerant Kremlin stand on gender-related issues.

President Putin, who has initiated constitutional changes,includingan amendment defining marriage exclusively as a union between a man and a woman, has repeatedly mocked LGBTQ+ rights.

On December 5 last year, Putin signed a law that significantly expanded restrictions on activities seen as promoting LGBT rights in the country. The Associated Press then reported that this law outlawed advertising, media and online resources, books, films, and theatre productions deemed to contain such “propaganda.”

It also broadened the existing restrictions by banning information about gender transitions to be spread to minors and banning information deemed to be propaganda promoting paedophilia. The violations are punishable by fines and, if committed by non-residents, could lead to their expulsion from Russia.

Rights groups hit out at the law as a state encouragement of homophobia, intolerance and discrimination.

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