In Russia, against the backdrop of mobilization and new laws against LGBTQ+ people, passports are being issued more often due to a change in gender marker

In Russia, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, mobilization and the adoption of repressive laws against LGBTQ+ people, the number of new passports issued due to a change in 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 passport issuance monthly. The statistics separately take into account each of the possible reasons for obtaining a document, including “gender change” (trans organizations recommend calling this legal procedure “gender marker change”).

In 2020, 428 passports were issued in connection with “gender change”, in 2021 - 554 passports, and in 12 months of 2022 - 936 documents.

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 gender marker, then in the next month they received 61. By winter, about a hundred new documents were issued every month. Russians received a record number of 119 passports in December.

The leaders in changing gender markers were Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. Next come the Novosibirsk and Sverdlovsk regions, as well as the Krasnodar Territory.

Human rights activists with whom Mediazona spoke explained the increase in statistics to the war, mobilization, the desire to emigrate, increased repression and fear of a complete ban on trans crossing in the country. At the same time, they noted that some transmen, after the announcement of the draft, on the contrary, decided to postpone changing their documents.