According to a poll by VTsIOM, Russians support the legal ban on gender reassignment

Most Russians support a bill to ban sex reassignment surgery, the key arguments in favor of such a position are non-interference with nature, moral principles and religious considerations. This was shown by the VTsIOM poll conducted at the end of June. Sociologists have previously recorded the negative attitude of Russians to the topic of transgenderism. Thus, according to a Romir poll conducted three years ago, almost half of the Russian population was offended by the very existence of trans people. Experts explain such views by the “basic conservatism” of Russian society and “ideological detuning from Western civilization.”

The State Duma in the third reading adopted a document that prohibits medical intervention aimed at changing sex, with the exception of cases of congenital anomalies in children. A poll by VTsIOM among 1,600 respondents over 18 years old shows that only half of Russians (48%) are aware of this legislative initiative, of which 18% are well aware of the issue, and 30% have heard something. The rest admitted that they do not know about the upcoming changes (52%). At the same time, innovations are supported by the majority of respondents – 76%, approximately one in ten does not support – 13%, 9% are indifferent to this. Women are slightly more likely to oppose the ban on gender reassignment surgery – 14% (11% among men), men are a little more indifferent – 12% (7% among women).

The ban is mainly opposed by young people aged 18–24 — 27%, and in 19% of cases, representatives of this age category mark the option “indifferent”. The older the respondents, the more often they support a ban on gender reassignment surgeries—among Russians over 60, the figure reaches 85% (vs. 51% in the 18–24 age group).

The choice was also influenced by the initial attitude of respondents to what is more important: biological sex or gender self-determination. The majority of Russians – 72% – are of the opinion that biological sex is more important than subjective self-perceptions. 13% of respondents adhere to the opposite point of view, another 15% found it difficult to give an unambiguous answer to this question.

The attitude of Russians to the problems of gender self-determination is influenced by age, education and urbanization. The most typical Russian who gives priority to the physical characteristics of the biological sex over self-perceptions is a man (75%) over 45 years old (74–78%) with a secondary specialized education (79%), a resident of a small city (500 thousand people or less) or village (75–78%), a resident of the North Caucasus Federal District (83%) or the Far Eastern Federal District (80%), actively consuming television or television along with the Internet (76–78%). The importance of gender identity is more often noted by women (15% versus 10% of men) aged 18–24 (27%) or 25–34 (17%) with incomplete higher or higher education (17%), living in one of the capitals (24% ), residents of the Northwestern Federal District (18%), active Internet users (21%).

Most often, the ban on gender reassignment operations is justified by the imperative of non-intervention in nature: 42% of representatives of this group say that you need to remain who you were born, and changing sex is unnatural. 30% believe that such operations are immoral, senseless, and pose a threat to society. 19% referred to religious principles. They emphasize that there should be traditional values ​​in Russia, and 13% consider such operations to be Western LGBT propaganda. Approximately one in ten believes that people who would like to change their sex should be treated rather than operated on (8%), another 6% appeal to the fact that many regret surgical sex change and that such operations cause serious harm to health.

Sociologists have previously recorded the negative attitude of Russian citizens to the topic of transgenderism. For example, a 2020 survey by the Romir research holding and the GlobalNR international community of research companies showed that 71% of Russians believe that the traditional gender roles of boys and girls are best suited for society. This was the highest rate among developed countries after China. At the same time, Russian women more often than men agreed with this statement, and married people more often than single people, the researchers drew attention. In addition, 43% of Russians surveyed said they were offended by the very existence of trans people. Only 13% of Russians believed that same-sex couples were eligible to marry, the lowest figure among countries surveyed.

Russian society is “basically conservative,” comments sociologist, founder of the Platforma social design center Alexei Firsov, commenting on the VTsIOM survey data. “Although this is a special conservatism: somewhere it is excessively conservative, somewhere modernist, the attitude towards non-traditional gender interactions still causes rejection by the main part of society,” Mr. Firsov continues. , the influence of the camp and power culture on a significant proportion of the population. There is another view – the wave theory. Measurements in the 90s showed a much more tolerant attitude towards non-traditional genders, and then there was a rollback. Now the trend is intensifying, since “gender history” is one of the ideological lines of detuning from Western civilization and a kind of interpretation that Russia is a special, “more correct and less perverted territory”, which is in opposition to the “degrading West”, points out Aleksey Firsov: “When a person needs to explain why we don’t need to become the West, his first arguments, as a rule, relate to gender relations – they have LGBT + people there, they don’t have a normal family, and so on. This is the most accessible argument for him. Everything else raises much more doubts among the layman. According to Mr. Firsov, a significant part of Russian society will perceive the ban on gender reassignment surgery as another step in the formation of identity.

Romir President Andrei Milekhin believes that it is “not entirely correct” to oppose Russian and world society: “Undoubtedly, we have different views on a number of issues with the inhabitants of Europe and the United States, but at the same time, in many respects we coincide with the citizens of India and China. As for the topic of gender transition, which has gained urgency, Russians are indeed very sensitive to such things. At such moments, our country as a whole adheres to a conservative position, which does not at all exclude the possibility of discussion and should not become grounds for attacks on those who hold a different opinion.”

Natalya Kostarnova