Russia Passes Bill Banning Gender Reassignment Surgery

Russia’s parliament unanimously adopted a bill on Friday banning any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” in the country’s ongoing crackdown on gay and transgender identity.

The bill also bans changing one’s gender in official documents and public records.

The text of the bill was toughened in the parliament, or Duma, on Thursday, with clauses added to annul marriages in which one party had changed their gender and to bar transgender Russians from adopting children or becoming foster parents. 

Lyubov Vinogradova, executive director of Russia’s Independent Psychiatric Association, told the Associated Press the bill was “misanthropic.” 

Gender-affirming procedures “shouldn’t be banned entirely, because there are people for whom it is the only way to ... to exist normally and find peace with themselves,” Vinogradova said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that concerns over the bill were “excessive.” 

"All these appeals were worked out by experts in the Duma, and these questions were answered, therefore, in this case, some concerns are probably excessive," Peskov said.  “Appropriate reservations have been made.”

The bill contains an exception allowing medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies.

After Friday’s passage, the bill will move to Russia’s upper chamber, regarded as a Kremlin-controlled rubber stamp, before President Vladimir Putin signs it into law.

Putin has made its assault on gay and transgender people part of Russia’s broader conflict with the West, and has even linked it with the war in Ukraine.