Russia's Plan to Ban Sex Change Surgery to Tackle Draft Dodgers

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday submitted a draft bill to parliament that would ban surgery to change people's gender, in an apparent attempt to crack down on draft dodgers in the country.

Nearly 400 members of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, were behind proposed amendments to existing legislation that would prohibit "medical interventions aimed at changing a person's gender," one of the co-authors of the bill, Pyotr Tolstoy announced on his Telegram channel. The bill exempts surgery to treat congenital anomalies in children.

Russian officials have been suggesting that such surgeries could impact the country's defensive capabilities amid Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

Tolstoy said the draft bill was submitted, in part, due to "mobilization obstacles," independent Latvia-based outlet Meduza reported.

"This was connected both with the desire of same-sex couples to adopt children and partly with mobilization obstacles. This is at odds with our values and the principles of our Constitution," Tolstoy said.

"Why are we doing this? We preserve Russia for our descendants, Russia with its cultural and family values and traditional norms, by blocking the Western anti-family ideology from infiltrating the country," the lawmaker said Tuesday on his Telegram channel.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

Last month, Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko told state-run news agency Tass that the ministry was moving to prohibit gender marker changes in ID documents for those who have not undergone "sex change operations."

"A gender change letter issued by a medical organization currently serves as grounds to correct official documents. However, surgical procedures are not necessary to obtain this letter," Chuychenko said at the time. "Therefore, we see the following: a person who changed their gender in their passport while remaining the same person in the physical sense can marry and adopt children."

Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of Russia's Investigative Committee, has suggested that some people are changing their sex "on paper" in order to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine.

"Sex change on paper is a deception, a fraud. If this is fraud, this deception violates the interests of the state, our defense capability," he said.

An unnamed member of the State Duma told the Russian newspaper Kommersant on May 3 that there have been "recurrent incidents" of men looking to change their gender to avoid conscription.

"Many young people have approached private clinics to sign off on change of gender to avoid the draft because of the special military operation in Ukraine," the lawmaker said.

Independent news outlet Mediazona, citing data from Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs, reported that in 2022, the number of Russians who received a new passport after gender reassignment rose dramatically.

In 2020, 428 passports were issued in connection with a change of gender marker, 554 in 2021, and 936 in 2022, it said, adding that there was a notable increase beginning in March last year, immediately after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

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