Russia has started expelling transgender women who lack Russian citizenship

Moscow courts have ordered the deportation of at least four trans women under the new law on “LGBT propaganda,” reports Mediazona.

The law banning “LGBT propaganda” came into effect in December 2022. Since then, the Moscow city courts have made seven charges related to the law, all against trans women who engaged in sex work and advertised their services on the Internet. None are Russian citizens. Rulings in four of the cases have already been announced.

Mediazona suggests that one police officer was responsible for bringing three of the women to court, after he found their profiles on a website for sex workers. The fourth case was also based on an online questionnaire for sex workers, about “the provision of intimate services for non-traditional sexual relations.”