Putin bans adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries permitting gender-affirming care

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed into law separate bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community both in Russia and abroad. The new laws outlaw the promotion of non-traditional families and the adoption of Russian children by foreign nationals from countries that recognize a person’s right to gender-affirming care. The bills were approved by the Russian Duma earlier this month.

Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.

The adoption law effectively prohibits citizens of Australia, Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and other countries from adopting children from Russia or taking guardianship over them. Citizens of the U.S. were banned from adopting Russian children in 2012.

“The most dangerous thing in this situation is that the state can control the absence of a gender change in potential adoptive parents only at the time of adoption on the territory of the Russian Federation,” lawmakers wrote in the bill’s explanatory notes, Zona Media reported at the time of the bill’s passage. “And, therefore, a foreign citizen who has adopted a child who is a citizen of Russia, after returning to the territory of the state of his citizenship, can already change the gender, but the worst thing is that he can change the gender of the adopted child, for example, by starting to use hormone replacement therapy, which is unacceptable!”

The second law bans what it terms “childfree propaganda” that promotes non-traditional families as a positive environment for children. Media companies and social media sites will be required to monitor content to ensure compliance with the law. An exemption would be made for positive portrayals of a monastic life that included celibacy.

Failure to comply with the law would bring fines of up to 5 million rubles ($48,000).

“These bills are designed to protect people, ensure their health and safety,” Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote in a post to Telegram. “It is necessary to do everything so that new generations of our citizens grow up oriented toward traditional family values.”

Volodin justified the censorship, saying that “to protect people from propaganda of childlessness, it is necessary to limit the distribution of destructive content on the Internet, in the media, in movies, and advertising” to protect against what he called “propaganda of pedophilia, LGBT, and gender reassignment.”

“We are talking specifically about protecting citizens, primarily the younger generation, from information disseminated in the media that negatively affects the formation of personality,” Volodin wrote.

The new laws are part of the crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community by Russia under the rule of Putin.

In December of 2022, Putin signed a law strengthening a ban on LGBTQ “propaganda” in Russia and making it illegal to promote same-sex sexual relations or suggest non-heterosexual attractions are “normal.” Individuals can be fined up to 400,000 rubles ($6,370) for “LGBT propaganda” and up to 200,000 rubles ($3,185) for “demonstrations of LGBT and information that encourages a change of gender among teenagers.” The fines increase to 5 million rubles ($80,000) and 4 million rubles ($64,000) respectively for legal entities.

Last year, Putin directed sexologists in the country to treat homosexuality as a mental illness no different than bestiality and ordered the Ministry of Health to create an institute to study homosexuals at the Serbsky Center for Psychiatry and Narcology.

“The help of such specialists is necessary if a person wants to recover from frigidity, impotence, or such violations of sexual behavior as fetishism, masochism, and sadism,” the Duma reported in its official newspaper at the time.

In November of last year, Putin requested that the Russian government officially recognize the “international public LGBT movement” as “extremist” under the law, and his request was granted that same month. Less than two days later, security forces raided at least four LGBTQ+ establishments in Moscow.

An employee of the Central Station gay bar said police raided Club Secret, Mono Bar, and Hunters Party in Moscow, the local group SOTA reported on its Telegram channel. A fourth establishment, an unidentified gay sauna, was also raided, according to Novaya Gazeta. Video posted to social media shows a strong police presence outside one of the venues.