Russia backs bill banning adoption for countries allowing transition
A participant holds a banner with the inscription ‘Stop propaganda of violence’ during the Gay Pride demonstration in St. Petersburg, Russia (Igor Russak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Russian MPs have approved a bill that seeks to prevent the adoption of Russian children by people in countries that allow gender transition.
The bill would bar people from countries that authorise “the change of sex by medical intervention, including with the use of medicine”, or which allow people to change their gender on official documents, from adopting Russian children, according to AFP.
The move comes just a year after Russia outlawed all gender-affirming care for trans people.
Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin claimed the legislation would “protect” children, adding that Europe and the US are “sick” for allowing people to transition or legally change their gender. “With this law we are protecting the child, we are doing everything for the child not to end up in a country where same-sex marriage and sex change is allowed,” he said.
The bill, which lawmakers voted to advance on Wednesday (25 September), will now go through two more readings, and needs to be approved by the upper chamber before it can be signed into law by president Vladimir Putin.
Adoption of Russian children in other countries has reportedly fallen drastically in the past 12 years. AFP put this down to a 2012 law that stops Americans adopting Russian youngsters, saying that official figures reveal that last year only six children were adopted by foreign citizens.
The proposed law is the latest move in a long line of measures aimed at limiting the freedom of LGBTQ+ people in Russia. As well as an anti-gay “propaganda” law, queer couples are not allowed to marry or adopt, gender-affirming care is illegal, conversion therapy is permitted, and there is no protection against discrimination for LGBTQ+ people.
According to the website Equaldex, Russia score just 23 out of 100 in terms of queer rights, with the only rights LGBTQ+ seem to have is the ability to serve in the military and to donate blood.
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