The Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, voted to ban legal and medical gender surgeries.
The country has been fighting against LGBTQ propaganda 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.”
The Russian lawmakers said they were cracking down on what they see as an existential fight against the influence of Western liberal values.
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.
“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.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly targeted transgender ideology, as well as LGBTQ people in general, claiming that the West has lost its moral compass.
Last year, the Russian parliament passed a “gay propaganda” law that effectively made it illegal to refer to LGBTQ relationships in any kind of positive light.
