Russian lawmakers on Tuesday submitted a bill to parliament that would ban legal or surgical sex changes, the latest in a series of conservative proposals put forward since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine last year.
The bill would prohibit “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” according to the website of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
This would include “the formation of a person’s primary and (or) secondary sexual characteristics.”
The bill also says the government will determine a list of allowed interventions “related to the treatment of congenital physiological anomalies in children.”
Around 400 deputies in the State Duma have supported the bill.
Last year, Russia toughened laws on “gay propaganda,” in effect banning positive references to non-traditional relationships.
At the time, senior lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein praised the move, saying the war in Ukraine “takes place not only on the battlefield, but also in the minds of people.”
Lawmakers have also called on officially labeling “radical feminism” — a term increasingly used against the political opposition — as an extremist ideology.
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