In Russia, against the background of the war in Ukraine, the mobilization and the adoption of repressive laws against LGBTQ+, the number of new passports issued due to a change in the gender marker has increased. This is evidenced by the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was studied by Mediazona.
The agency publishes data on the issuance of passports on a monthly basis. The statistics separately take into account each of the possible reasons for issuing a document, including “gender change” (trans organizations recommend calling this legal procedure “gender marker change”).
In 2020, in connection with “sex change » issued 428 passports, in 2021 — 554 passports, and for 12 months of 2022 — already 936 documents.
In 2022, Russians received a record number of new passports due to “sex change”. This is evidenced by the data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
A noticeable increase began in March, immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: if in February Russians received only 36 passports due to a change in the gender marker, then the next month it was already 61. By winter, about a hundred new documents were issued every month. A record number — 119 passports — the Russians received in December.
The leaders in changing the gender marker were Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. The Novosibirsk and Sverdlovsk regions, as well as the Krasnodar Territory, follow.
Human rights activists, with whom Mediazona spoke, explained the increase in statistics by war, mobilization, the desire to emigrate, increased repression and the fear of a complete ban on trans-transition in the country. At the same time, they noted that some transmen, after the announcement of the call, on the contrary, decided to postpone the change of documents.
Repressive anti-LGBT law signed. How to help human rights defenders who support the queer community