Russia - Transphobia
“Six or five genders were invented. Transformers, trance… I don’t even understand what it is.” LGBT aggressively impose their point of view on the "overwhelming majority". Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference in Osaka 29 June 2019 confused transgender people with transformers, answering a question about how Russia treats the LGBT community. A TASS correspondent asked Putin to comment on his interview with the Financial Times in the part where the president spoke about the obsolescence of the liberal idea, and about the normal attitude towards people with non-traditional sexual orientation. The journalist noted that Elton John had already paid attention to this statement of the president , who accused Putin of hypocrisy.
Putin noted that in his interview he focused on the fact that in some countries there is an “inflection” with the liberal idea, which is that it begins to “eat itself”, and those who promote these ideas live “in its own paradigm. “So you remembered Elton John. In fact, he is a brilliant musician, I respect him, in fact he visits us [in Russia], we all listen to him with pleasure. I think that he is mistaken: I didn’t distort anything here, we really have a very even attitude towards representatives of the LGBT community. Really. Calm, absolutely unbiased,” Putin assured.
At the same time, he stressed that in Russia there is a law banning the propaganda of homosexuality among minors, for which our country is being “spoofed”. “Look, let's let a man grow up, become an adult, and then decide who he is. Leave the kids alone!" Putin explained the need for the law. “Now there is nothing! So I also said in this interview - six or five genders were invented! Transformers, trance... I don't even understand what it is! Well, God bless everyone,” said the President of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, according to him, the main problem is that this part of society "aggressively imposes its point of view on the vast majority." “We need to be more loyal to each other, more open and transparent. Everyone must be respected, but one cannot impose one's point of view by force. And representatives of this so-called liberal idea have recently been imposing, so that in schools they dictate the need for a certain sexual education. And the parents don’t want to - they are almost put in jail, ”Putin explained.
Transphobia is a negative attitude towards transgender and transgender people. The adjective " transphobic " is used to describe the qualities and objects associated with transphobia . A person who exhibits transphobia is called the word " transphobe ". Transphobia can be expressed in the form of violence, discrimination, hatred, disgust, aggressive behavior towards people who do not correspond to existing gender expectations and norms in society. Transphobia includes institutional forms of discrimination, criminalization, pathologisation and stigmatization and manifests itself in a variety of ways, from physical violence, hate speech , insults and hostile media portrayals to forms of oppression and social exclusion.
Transphobia, like in many countries, exists in Russia and manifests in various ways. While some people in Russia are accepting and supportive of transgender rights, others hold prejudiced views or engage in discriminatory behavior. Russia does not have legislation in place to protect transgender individuals from discrimination in areas such as employment, housing, and healthcare. This absence of legal protections can contribute to an environment where transphobia and discrimination can persist.
Transgender individuals in Russia often face societal prejudice, stigma, and social exclusion. They may encounter difficulties in accessing healthcare, employment, and educational opportunities. Transphobic attitudes can also lead to harassment, violence, and hate crimes targeting transgender people.
Russia has a high level of transphobia, especially among the male population. There are frequent cases of psychological and physical violence, as well as discrimination against transgender people in the areas of education, labor and social services. Society often associates transgender people with lesbians and gays “who went further and decided to have surgery”, not understanding the fact that sexual orientation and gender identity are different things. And that a transgender person can have any sexual orientation, just like a cisgender person.
Russia has implemented laws and policies that have been criticized for their impact on the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, including transgender people. In 2013, the Russian government passed a law commonly referred to as the "gay propaganda law," which restricts the dissemination of information about non-traditional sexual relationships to minors. This law has been criticized for fostering an environment of discrimination and intolerance towards LGBTQ+ individuals, including transgender people.
In some regions of Russia, there are legislative acts prohibiting the promotion of transgender people. In general, various language was used in regional propaganda laws , and transgenderism was mentioned in the laws of St. Petersburg, Samara and Kostroma regions, and the Republic of Bashkortostan. After the adoption of the federal law on the prohibition of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors (which does not mention transgender people), the St. Petersburg law was repealed. In the Samara region, the law was partially repealed, and the ban on promoting transgender people remained in force.
To issues of gender identity, not sexual orientation, propaganda legislation was first applied in 2013 in St. Petersburg, when the district administration refused to allow activists of the LGBT organization Vykhod to approve a picket dedicated to the International Day of Remembrance for transgender people.
In Russia, the process for legal gender recognition can be complex and restrictive. Transgender individuals are required to undergo medical interventions, including sterilization, and obtain psychiatric diagnoses to legally change their gender. These requirements have been criticized by human rights organizations as violating individuals' right to self-determination and bodily autonomy.
On December 29, 2014, the Government of the Russian Federation adopted Decree No. 1604 "On the lists of medical contraindications, medical indications and medical restrictions on driving", which mentions transsexuality among the conditions that prevent obtaining a driver's license. This news was widely interpreted as a driving ban for transgender people, although, according to lawyers, the legislation essentially excludes such an interpretation. However, after the ruling was passed, transgender people began to face difficulties in obtaining medical documents for driving licenses. On April 2, 2015, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended that the authorities of the Russian Federation remove indications of transgender identities from the list of contraindications to driving.
In May 2015, a draft law was submitted to the State Duma to ban marriages for people who have "changed sex". As the authors of the bill pointed out, its goal is to prevent the use of the “sex change” procedure to circumvent the ban on homosexual marriages by creating situations where the legal and “actual” sex of a person does not match. The draft law was criticized by many lawyers, as well as by the legal department of the State Duma and the parliament of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. Experts point out that the bill violates the rights of all citizens - both transgender and cisgender - to privacy and medical confidentiality, and is also absurd and contrary to its own goals.
Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly used attacks on transgender rights, as well as LGBTQ people in general, to claim that the West has lost its moral compass and to further justify its aggression against Western-backed Ukraine. Russia adopted its first legislation restricting LGBTQ rights in 2013, emphasizing its hostility to the depiction of "nontraditional sexual relations" to minors. Similar laws have also been passed in EU member Hungary, as well as numerous US states.
At a Kremlin ceremony 30 September 2022 to mark the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian territories, Putin inveighed against nontraditional families, seeming to incite homophobia to provide a cultural justification for his war. Putin asked "... do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia, “parent number one, parent number two and parent number three” (they have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.
"Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself."
Russia continued its lurch to the right on 14 June 2023 as the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, voted to ban legal and medical gender reassignment. Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin cited US statistics as an argument to proceed quickly and “ban all this fornication.” Amendments to two laws were endorsed by over 400 of the 450 deputies in the first reading, and are now headed to the regions and government ministries for consultation. Volodin told reporters he hopes to have the final version adopted before the end of the current legislative session, in the spring of 2024.
The country has been hostile to the LGBTQ community for years, but the invasion of Ukraine has seen the Kremlin take an increasingly hard line against everything that does not comply with its definition of "family values." Rhetoric coming from Russian lawmakers framed the crackdown as an existential fight against the influence of Western liberal values.
The bill to ban gender reassignment operations was submitted to the chamber by deputies from all five Duma factions, headed by speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. The worst part is the abuse of children,” Volodin told the lawmakers. “In the US, where these new pseudo-values are promoted, the proportion of transgender people among teenagers is already three times higher than among adults. This is the result of propaganda. The number of children receiving hormone therapy has more than doubled in five years. Pumping up children with hormones begins at the age of eight. In just five years, between 2017 and 2021, more than 2,000 gender reassignment surgeries were performed on children aged 13 to 17.”
He urged The Ministry of Health not to invent amendments based on concerns for the well-being of people. The correct way to take care of people is to “ban this fornication,” Volodin argued. The ministry responded to the proposal with a “very emotional” letter, Deputy Chairman Pyotr Tolstoy told the chamber. He paraphrased the ministry’s argument as saying that the bill would cause “ethical, medical and social problems” to individuals whose documentation will no longer “match the reality that has developed in their heads,” and who may commit suicide as a result.
The provisions of the draft allow medical intervention for the treatment of congenital anomalies of sex formation in children, but only "by decision of the medical commission of the federal state health institution." The list of such institutions and the procedure for making decisions will be approved by the Government of the Russian Federation. The proposed bill would prohibit "medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person" and "the state registration of a change of gender without an operation." This includes "the formation of a person's primary and (or) secondary sexual characteristics." But surgeries that are "aimed at treating congenital anomalies in children" would remain legal.
In addition, the bill introduces a ban on registry offices to make corrections or changes to documents based on sex change certificates issued by medical organizations. Today, the norms of the law allow the registry office to draw up conclusions on amendments to the documents of a citizen who has submitted a medical certificate of gender reassignment. The bill proposes to recognize this norm as invalid.
"I really want the guys who are now defending the honor of Russia at the cost of their lives to return home and see that the country has changed," the head of the ruling United Russia party, Pyotr Tolstoy, said. "That we are all fighting for a new sovereign Russia, as a united front free from Western influence."
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