RUSSIA — The State Duma in Russia has voted in favor of banning legal or surgical gender changes. The bill was approved in its first reading and bans medical interventions aimed at changing a person's gender and registration of a change of gender without an operation.
The Russian government will determine a list of allowed interventions related to the treatment of congenital physiological anomalies in children.
The bill has received support from all present State Duma deputies, who want to maintain traditional and spiritual values in the country. Moscow Times reports.
Human rights activists are concerned that banning gender reassignment will result in an increase in cases of gender dysphoria and an underground market for surgeries.
President Putin and other officials view Western liberal values as a foreign ideology that threatens Russia's cultural heritage.
The country has increasingly been cracking down on what it sees as harmful Westernization. The bill banning gender reassignment will have to pass further readings before the decision is confirmed
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