State Duma approves first reading of bill banning legal gender changes
Source: Meduza
Russia’s State Duma passed the first reading of a bill to ban legal gender changes, reports the independent news outlet Mediazona. All 365 deputies present at the meeting voted in favor of the bill.
The bill includes a ban on changes to gender markers in official documents without having first undergone surgery, which would only be possible for those with “congenital physiological anomalies,” referring to intersex people. Hormone therapy would also be banned.
The bill was first submitted to the State Duma at the end of May. One deputy, Pyotr Tolstoy, said the bill would help “preserve Russia for posterity, with its cultural and family values, with its traditional ways, by placing a barrier in the way of the Western anti-family ideology.”
