Russian lawmakers have recently drafted a bill aimed at banning the adoption of children to citizens of countries where so-called “sex changes” are allowed, according to a senior parliamentarian in the Russian State Duma.
Vasily Piskarev, head of the Russian State Duma’s committee on security and anti-corruption and a member of United Russia, said on Monday that “the measure is justified because there’s no way to guarantee that a foster child won’t end up in a gay family if one of the parents decides to transition to another sex”.
Since July this year, gender manipulation procedures have been banned in Russia, according to a law signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The State Duma has proposed to ban citizens of NATO countries from adopting children in #Russia
Russia may ban citizens of countries that allow sex change from adopting children. The corresponding bill was prepared by the deputy of the state Duma Vasily Piskarev. He emphasized… pic.twitter.com/0igZd5Uheu
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) November 20, 2023
Adoption to countries that allow same-sex couples has been banned in Russia since 2013. Only countries that have direct agreements with Russia, guaranteeing that Russian children will not end up with homosexual couples, are allowed to adopt.
NATO countries affected
The new bill “proposes to prohibit the adoption of a child by foreign citizens in case their state allows gender reassignment, both by producing the appropriate identification papers or by using medical and other kinds of interventions”, Vasily Piskarev explained in a statement.
Piskarev emphasized that the bill essentially aims to ban adoptions by people from NATO member countries, “as most countries that allow… same-sex marriage are NATO countries”.
– Russian lawmakers must ensure that a foster child grows up and develops in a normal family where there’s a biological father and a mother, the parliamentarian added.
Russian ban
In Russia, surgeries and drug treatments related to sex reassignment procedures are now allowed only in cases requiring treatment for malformations of children’s reproductive organs. Decisions on these procedures are made by clinics with a special license from the Russian Ministry of Health.
State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin defended the ban on gender reassignment, arguing that it was introduced to protect the country from what he called the Western “transgender industry”.
Volodin cited the US, where he claimed the number of gender reassignment surgeries has increased 50-fold in the past decade. “This is the path leading to the degradation of a nation”, he said.
According to the Russian Health Ministry, between 2018 and 2022, when the procedure was still legal, just over 2,000 people legally changed their gender in Russia.
