Putin’s signature follows the unanimous Duma decision in mid-July. Doctors and human rights activists express criticism, those affected fear even more exclusion.
Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin signed into law Russia’s controversial law banning “sex reassignment surgery”. According to this, people in Russia who have a different gender identity are no longer allowed to undergo surgical procedures or have hormones prescribed.
Doctors criticized that people were denied access to medical help. Human rights activists complain about a violation of the right to self-determination. Victims who speak of gender reassignment fear even more exclusion, an increase in hatred and violent attacks.
The State Duma unanimously passed the law on July 14. According to the law, marriages in which one partner has changed their gender in the past are also annulled. However, surgical interventions are still permitted if the genitals are malformed.
The law’s initiators said they wanted to protect cultural traditions and family values in the fight against “Western ideologies.” Kremlin chief Putin is seen as an advocate of rigid role models for men and women. Putin, who repeatedly insists on tradition but is divorced himself, also had it anchored in the constitution that a marriage can only consist of a man and a woman.
Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, which is his pillar of power, have repeatedly branded issues of gender identity as the outgrowth of liberal ideology in the West. “Do we really want the children in our schools to be inflicted with perversions that lead to decay and extinction from the first grades?” Putin etched in September. Children are “taught that there are supposedly other sexes besides women and men, and they are suggested to have sex reassignment surgery,” Putin claimed. This is “unacceptable” for Russia.
Source: Stern
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