Seminar on the state of things for ‘trans’ people in Russia, held at London Metropolitan University in February 2024.
Legislation of 24 July 2023
Unlike many of these academic seminars, research had actually been done. It’s difficult, of course, to know exactly what is going on in Russia, since the admission of foreign correspondents had always been restricted and had only gotten worse since the invasion of Ukraine. This was further compounded by the taboo of reporting on ‘LGBTQ’ issues.
The academic was focussing on the ‘trans community’ in Russia, as in July 2023 Putin had instigated some ‘incredibly transphobic’ legislation.
The law, which makes “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person” and “the state registration of a change of gender without an operation” illegal, was swiftly passed by both houses of the Russian parliament earlier this month.
The law also bans individuals who have undergone gender reassignment from adopting children and annuls marriages in which one of the partners is transgender.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/07/24/putin-signs-gender-reassignment-ban-into-law-a81950
Currently international focus was on what Putin was doing to Ukrainians with less attention on the crimes against his own people, especially ‘minoritised groups’. Putin had begun to portray the LGBT community as a ‘satanist western phenomenon’, ergo a threat to the foundation of Russia’s civilisation. State sanctioned homophobia was very alive with the Orthodox Church helping out the government. Influential public figures were also chiming in. The academic claimed that Putin had said the existence of the LGBTQ community was a ‘big reason’ for invading Ukraine (Putin has mentioned such issues publicly but I doubt he has ever said it was the major reason).
Potted history of LGBT legislation
According to the academic, homosexuality was decriminalised in 1917 at the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution but then in 1934 ‘male homosexuality’ was outlawed (probably she meant sodomy but she didn’t clarify). Female homosexuality, however, was not legislated against, her own personal take was that the Central Committee thought lesbianism was ‘hot’ and therefore allowable. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, male homosexuality was again legalised in 1993.
In 1997, trans-identified people were allowed to change their gender marker on legal documents, but not without a ‘medical certificate’ either that they promised to undergo a ‘physical transition’ or had actually done so, i.e. in line with legislation quietly taking place across the rest of the Western world.
In 2012 the “foreign agents” law was passed and anyone associated with ‘LGBT’ groups were immediately at risk of being prosecuted. 2013 saw the introduction of a ‘propaganda law‘ – the academic wrongly compared the law to the US Army policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’.
The law passed 436-0 on Tuesday, with just one deputy abstaining from voting on the bill, which bans the spreading of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors.
The law in effect makes it illegal to equate straight and gay relationships, as well as the distribution of material on gay rights. It introduces fines for individuals and media groups found guilty of breaking the law, as well as special fines for foreigners.
Russia passes law banning gay ‘propaganda’, Guardian, 20 June 2013
In 2018 trans-identified people could change their gender markers on legal documentation without needing hormone therapy or surgery. (Again, notable that the achievements of Russian trans activists are almost in parallel with the rest of Europe.) December 2020 saw a ban on any dissemination of information on what was termed ‘non-traditional gender identity,’ the academic said. However, it appears she got two crucial words wrong, as I could only find references to ‘sexual relations’, not ‘gender identity’, meaning she was making an anti-gay law sound anti-trans.
In December 2022, ten months into the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, the Duma extended the scope of Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ law forbidding the public portrayal of ‘non-traditional sexual relations’. Previously focused on minors, the prohibited exposure would now apply to any age group. Why would Russia’s parliament do this in the middle of a war?
Russia, Homophobia and the Battle for ‘Traditional Values’, Human Rights Watch
In late 2021, LGBT groups were again labelled as ‘foreign agents’, which the academic claimed especially impacted youth groups; congregating suddenly became a criminal activity. Finally came the legislation of July 2023, which undid the previous legislation relating to body modification and falsification of legal papers.
The academic also claimed that this meant that marriages were dissolved but didn’t clarify whose marriages exactly were subject to dissolution – from my Googling efforts it appears that same sex marriage has never been legal and the legislation in 2020 was simply to underscore what was already in the legislature; marriage would only be recognised between a man and a woman. In February 2024, the first convictions under the new law were prosecuted, which related to two separate incidences of posting rainbow flags digitally and one woman who wore ‘frog-shaped earrings displaying an image of a rainbow’, who received a five day custodial sentence. She felt that this had two benefits to Putin’s regime, one, to bolster support amongst conservative citizens, showing strength to the home audience, and two, it helped the crackdown on human rights groups in general.
The academic said Putin had warned that transgenderism could lead to having no more children in the world, rather forgetting that he at least partially right, as when people electively castrate themselves, it does lead to permanent infertility. Putin had explicitly spoken out against such surgery and said that he had wanted a future. With children. (Queer theorists give politicians like Putin such easy wins.)
The academic had interviewed four trans-identified Russians, two whom had left, two still in situ. She admitted these talking heads were ‘doing the rounds’ in the media but explained this was because so few people were prepared to speak publicly, rather than the more likely explanation that were linked to pressure groups.
She said it was difficult to estimate how many trans people live in Russia and that it could be as many as two million (the total population is approx. 144 million) but that it was not known. In the last year, 900 people had rushed to change their gender on legal documents, before the door slammed shut on the opportunity. Lots of trans people now wanted to emigrate but were scared to because it meant they wouldn’t get hormone therapy (this doesn’t make sense as cross sex hormones are basically readily available for adults in Europe) and would instead have to get ‘really grim surgeries, which is really really frightening’, said the academic in proto-terf mode. Getting hormones off the dark web was also really scary but there were so few options.
The interviewees
Sacha, the barista
The academic interviewed a trans-identified female, who she had called ‘Sacha’, who had hoped to start on testosterone when the legislation changes came in. She had been left ‘unable to access the healthcare’ she needed but had, if I understood correctly, accessed enough testosterone on the black market to deepen her voice and pass as male. Previous to that she had been seeing a psychiatrist and a gender therapist in order to gain access to cross sex hormones and get on a waiting list for surgery. However, both the psychiatrist and the gender therapist consulted Sacha’s mother, – apparently all three felt that Sacha was not really trans, rather a person with deep psychiatric problems. We didn’t learn how old Sacha was exactly but that she was at university, which she had had to cut short. She now worked as a barista for a big Russian coffee chain. During a corporate staff event people were incredibly open to her wearing a name badge with her chosen male name on it. Despite the acceptance of her work colleagues, she still wanted to emigrate.
Sergei, living in Argentina
‘Sergei’ (not the real name), the second trans-identified female the academic interviewed, had a female partner and had already gotten the paperwork in place defining her as male legally. She was a parent to two children, aged 5 and 8 years old (the partner being the biological mother). Therefore, the legislative changes put them at risk of being recorded as a homosexual couple, which meant that the children might be taken away. They moved out of Russia to Nepal, tried getting political asylum in the UK (denied) and were now living in Argentina and happy.
Her partner’s children and parents were unaware that Sergei was female, since she passes as male. In fact, the in-laws were very pleased that Sergei had married their daughter, who had previously professed to be bisexual and had now been fixed (no one had any problem with the people who snickered about this).
Lena, living in Berlin
‘Lena’ was a trans-identified male living in Berlin. Apparently Lena passes so effortlessly he was living a care-free life, but his concern was for those who didn’t, as they would find it difficult to get a job and might have to go back into the closet. He was also worried about those who had married after they transitioned, i.e. people like Sergei. The academic naturally didn’t comment upon whether Lena really passed well or not and this was as much as we learned about him.
Ally, living in Moscow
The third trans-identified female the academic had interviewed was living in Moscow but had not properly started transition yet, so her vocal register still sounded more female than male. Ally worried about being attacked on the street. Some family members were supportive, others not. Prior to the legislation being passed, she had wanted to get her legal documents changed, but was now doing everything possible to stay off the government’s radar.
In summary, all four people sounded like they were from middle class privileged backgrounds.
Changes post-propaganda law
Since passing the law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality, censors had started to remove references and gay scenes in films. Media generally avoided mentioning the subject at all, even if it was incidental to a story. The main polling company in Russia, Levada, conducted a poll in 2020 which had shown that one-fifth of the Russian population would ‘eliminate’ the LGBT population if they could, 56 percent held negative opinions and 31 percent said they would stop talking to a friend who came out as gay. Despite her hand-wringing about this situation, the results actually showed a slight improvement in public attitudes, not a deterioration, as reported by the Moscow Times on the same. She assured us that in 2024, these figures were likely to be much worse.
The academic thought trans people should have the top priority for those wanting to leave Russia, as they might be forced to revert back to their original gender, and in the case of trans-identified males, this would mean conscription.
She finished on the story of an outspoken trans activist, a trans-identified female who had adopted a child with hearing problems. However, now that the law has changed, a neighbour reported her to the authorities for being ‘gay and trans’ and the child was taken away.
Analysis of Russian media
The second academic to speak had lived in Russia previously and had done a study on eight mainstream Russian publications during the time the aforementioned laws had been passed and in the period before that, the whole span was thirteen years. For someone paid to talk for a living, she certainly made hard work of explaining to us what she had found, however, the one thing she did clearly communicate was that the criteria she used to measure how hostile the Russian media was measured against the standards that trans advocacy groups had set. In summary, these standards sounded no different than the ones imposed on media organisations by Trans Media Watch and included using the chosen pronouns of the subject, using the appropriate gendered grammar when discussing a trans-identified individual (e.g. adjective endings) and not using the words ‘trans’ or ‘transgender’ as nouns. She assured us it was ‘a very practical guide’ which had existed for at least ten years.
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