June 01, 2023

Russia To Ban Gender Reassignment?


Russia To Ban Gender Reassignment?
Hand holding a trans rights flag. transarmyofficial, Instagram.

The Duma has drafted a law forbidding gender transition in Russia. The legislation focuses on prohibiting gender-affirming surgery but also bans gender changes in official documents, such as passports. This action is just the latest state-sponsored anti-LGBT action.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, anti-LGBT laws were loosened, but then the course reversed when Vladimi Putin became president in 2000. According to journalist Masha Gessen, who is non-binary, the Kremlin's goal has been "to establish Russia as 'the "family values capital' of the world." Laws were passed to take kids away from non-straight and transgender parents, label LGBT Russians as "foreign agents," and ban "LGBT propaganda." As well, homophobic groups have threatened and murdered activists, including advocate Yelena Grigorieva.

In 1997, Russian law allowed citizens to change their gender on national documents. In 2020, however, a law was proposed that reverted the stated sex of transgender people in their birth certificates to the one they were assigned at birth, but it did not pass. Today, to access gender-affirming care such as surgeries or hormone therapy, Russians must obtain a certificate from a doctor of "transsexualism." This word is both incorrect and stigmatizing in English and Russian

Access to gender-affirming care is vital since, according to the Sage Neuroscience Center, it lowers the risk of suicide by 75 percent and increases an individual's overall quality of life.

 

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Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka
November 01, 2012

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.

Faith & Humor
December 01, 2011

Faith & Humor

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

Murder and the Muse
December 12, 2016

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.

The Little Humpbacked Horse
November 03, 2014

The Little Humpbacked Horse

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.

Murder at the Dacha
July 01, 2013

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.

A Taste of Russia
November 01, 2012

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.

Marooned in Moscow
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Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

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