Deputies took up transgender people – Newspaper Kommersant No. 214 (7415) of 11/18/2022

The State Duma will expand the list of prohibited information by including materials promoting gender reassignment. The corresponding amendment is being prepared by United Russia Alexander Khinshtein for the second reading of the bill on a complete ban on LGBT propaganda. The Duma does not yet plan to introduce criminal liability for repeated violation of such a ban, as the communists had previously proposed.

On November 21, the Duma Committees on Information Policy and Legislation will consider amendments to bills banning propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations. Recall that at the end of October, in the first reading, drafts were adopted on amending five federal laws and the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO), which propose to include “materials promoting non-traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences” in the list of prohibited information. The current art. 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors) will now provide for punishment for such propaganda among persons of any age. The fine for citizens under this article will be from 50 thousand to 400 thousand rubles, and for legal entities – up to 5 million rubles. (the maximum punishment threatens violators when using the media and the Internet). According to the wording of the first reading, citizens face a fine of up to 200,000 rubles for disseminating information among minors that demonstrates such relationships or that can cause minors to want to change their sex.

For the second reading of the bills, Alexander Khinshtein, who heads the information policy committee, prepared amendments “in terms of the prohibition of transgender propaganda.” As he explained to Kommersant, since the concept of transgenderism is not in the current Russian legislation, the wording about gender reassignment will most likely be used. Accordingly, the Code of Administrative Offenses will also provide for punishment for such propaganda, the deputy says. In addition, he made an amendment, according to which materials with LGBT propaganda on the site may become the basis for Roskomnadzor to enter it into the register of prohibited ones.

The Committee on Legislation also received amendments from deputies Nina Ostanina (KPRF) and Nikolai Burlyaev (“A Just Russia – For Truth”), providing for the imposition of punishment for repeated violation of the ban on LGBT propaganda among children under 18 years of age, up to imprisonment for up to three years. years. But, as the first deputy chairman of the committee, Irina Pankina (United Russia), explained to Kommersant, these changes cannot be made to the second reading: they need a separate bill, since we are talking about criminal liability.

In turn, the deputy from the “New People” Ksenia Goryacheva proposed not to apply the provisions of the Code of Administrative Offenses proposed by the draft to works of art. As Ms. Pankina noted, this amendment is unlikely to be supported by the committee, since this area does not fall under the proposed prohibitions anyway: in works of literature, art and other objects of culture, sexual relations in their various manifestations are an integral part and do not pursue the goal of promoting such relations.

Finally, the amendment by Yana Lantratova (“A Just Russia — For Truth”) on the ban on computer games with LGBT propaganda is redundant in meaning, Pankina added, since the ban on such propaganda, including in video games, is already contained in the wording of the introduced edition.

The Duma may take all the initiatives in the second and third readings as early as next week, Mr. Khinshtein said earlier.

Maria Makutina