The Kremlin is seeking to put an end to what it calls the “non-traditional lifestyle”, which will soon hire sexologists in clinics to “overcome” homosexuality and various sexual “mental disorders”.

The directive will come into force on 1 July. At the same time, Russia is taking very tough measures on the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, which President Vladimir Putin is invoking to show the moral decline of Western countries from which Russia must be protected.

“The help of such experts is necessary if a person wants to be cured of sexual frigidity, impotence, or disorders of sexual behaviour such as fetishism, masochism, and sadism,” the official newspaper of the Russian parliament said.

An end to “masturbation, homosexuality, bestiality”

The order, which bears Putin’s signature, stipulates that specialists will also help patients deal with “non-standard preferences, such as self-eroticism, homosexuality, bestiality”.

The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1990. Russia did the same in 1999. Last December, however, Putin signed a law expanding restrictions on promoting “LGBTQ+ propaganda,” effectively banning any public expression of the behaviour or lifestyle of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgender people in Russia.

Stopping Pride and Arrests of LGBTQ+ Activists

Authorities have already used this and earlier laws to stop gay pride marches and arrest gay rights activists.

This week, a district court fined the director of the LGBTQ+ support group Vykhod (Exodus) 150,000 rubles( $1,725) because the group did not identify itself in a social media post as a “foreign agent” as required by the new law, Novaya Gazeta.

In a similar vein, an online movie service was today fined 3.7 million rubles ($42,295) for failing to provide a warning about LGBTQ+ content in the films it screened. Earlier this month, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, approved a bill banning surgery for transgender people in its first reading.

Under the new health ministry directive, medical staff will help married couples “achieve sexual harmony” and advise parents on how to educate their children by talking to them about sex, the Russian parliament’s newspaper writes.