The Facts
Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, passed a bill Friday that would ban sex change operations and prohibit Russians from legally changing their gender on identity documents.
The unanimously passed bill includes an exception for medical interventions to treat congenital anomalies. Clauses were added in Thursday’s second reading that would annul marriages in which a spouse changed his gender and bar transgender people from fostering or adopting children.
The Spin
Pro-Russia narrative
Russia cannot be forced to adhere to the radical anti-family ideology that has infected the West over the last few years. Russian politicians are determined to protect their people from "woke" ideology that has convinced thousands of people that they can and should somehow change their gender. Russia will not indulge in ideologies that undermine traditional family values.
Anti-Russia narrative
LGBTQ people, and very acutely trans people, are under attack in a horrific way that completely denies their humanity. Putin and his puppets in parliament are marginalizing those already vulnerable, and passing laws that will only create a black market for hormone substitutes.This latest attack on LGBTQ people is an urgent human rights issue.
