The position of the Russian Orthodox Church on gender reassignment operations caused controversy among specialists

After the replica of the representatives of the church, discussions broke out in the scientific communities

Possible prospects for a ban on the territory of Russia of sex change operations, on which the ROC insists, were assessed by experts. According to plastic surgeons, such a scenario is unlikely, since citizens should remain free to choose how they want to see and feel themselves. Yes, and the operations themselves bring doctors huge money. But psychologists considered that representatives of the clergy were thinking in the right direction. A healthy society, in their opinion, should be rid of illustrative examples of reincarnation from boys to girls and vice versa.

In fairness, it should be noted that Russia has a peculiar heritage: the first full-fledged sex change operation was carried out not in liberated America and not in enlightened Europe, but on the territory of the USSR. A breakthrough in this area was made by the Riga surgeon Viktor Kalnberz, who performed a series of procedures between 1968 and 1972 on a simple Soviet woman, Inna. But when the deed was done, the doctor received not praise, but a reprimand from the country’s leadership. Nevertheless, it was from that time on that sex reassignment operations became successful.

“Everything that was done by world-class specialists before 1968 cannot be called a full-fledged surgical intervention, it was only a correction,” says plastic surgeon Dmitry Klimov. – People were turned into hermaphrodites, and this is not quite what the patients wanted. To date, the medical community has become convinced that transsexuality is a serious disorder, the only way to treat it is a sex change. If we refuse these manipulations, then we will refuse to treat 0.5% of the Russian population.

According to statistics, the number of requests for the keywords “sex change” from Russian Internet users has increased significantly. In 2014, there were almost 5 thousand of them, and in 2021 there were 13 thousand. This indicates a significant increase in the popularity of this topic.

“Citizens who feel “not in their body” at first glance have really become more, but it’s impossible to change sex simply of their own free will,” Klimov says. – The patient must have a certificate with a diagnosis of transsexualism. And it is issued not even in an ordinary clinic, but in a psychiatric dispensary after two years of observation. I’m not talking about the fact that a person must be over 21 years old and have no contraindications. By the way, on the territory of the Russian Federation, a sex change operation is not performed on homosexuals.

In the community of plastic surgeons, they are sure that gender reassignment is necessary for individuals as a breath of fresh air. Only this procedure will bring harmony and happiness into their lives, without it they will not be able to exist normally.

However, there is also an opposite point of view. According to Vakhtang Kipshidze, deputy chairman of the synodal department for relations between the church, society and the media of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church insists on a ban on gender reassignment surgeries, because the growth in the popularity of these surgeries is associated solely with the influence of Western cultures on Russian traditions.

“Our proposal appeared in the context of the adoption of a law that prohibits the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations,” the clergyman notes.

According to psychologist Marina Levitina, the number of people suffering from transsexualism remains constant, unchanged from decade to decade. The behavior of people is controlled exclusively by the fashion for sex change.

“If such operations are prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation, patients will be forced to leave our country,” says Levitina. – On the one hand, it is wrong if domestic medicine cannot meet their needs. But on the other hand, we will be able to take a course towards the improvement of society. Our children will be spared from confronting such realities, which means they will not consider them the norm, which means they will prefer traditional family values ​​to all sorts of surrogates.