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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Faith & Humor
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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.

At the Circus
January 01, 2013

At the Circus

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

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.

Russian Rules
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From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.

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.

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Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 

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Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas
October 01, 2013

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.

 

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