Catch 22!

What it is to be trans in another country. We for the most part enjoy a safe existence here in Connecticut, if you are white middle class and if you are aware of your surroundings life can be pretty good. But if you live say in Moscow you have to be prepared for just about anything.

When I wear high heels, my soul soars': meet Moscow's shunned transgender community
Forced to keep a low profile by an increasingly intolerant society, The Moscow Times meets the city’s residents struggling to find acceptanceThe Guardian
Elizaveta Vereykina for The Moscow Times, part of the New East network
Thursday 10 September 2015

HurdlesTo officially change legal identification documents, including the internal passports that are the primary IDs for all Russians over the age of 14, transgender people must go through several steps, including being diagnosed by a state psychiatric commission with “transsexualism”.

Tatyana Glushkova, a lawyer with the Transgender Legal Defence Project, which offers free legal help to transgender people, says that hurdles remain even after those requirements are met.

“According to the law, one must submit a certificate of gender change. However, there is no approved form for such a certificate,” Glushkova said. She explained that state registry offices often use the lack of a proper form as an excuse to refuse to amend birth certificates.

Glushkova also noted that while there is no law stating that gender reassignment surgery is necessary to change a person’s gender on official documents, courts often refuse to do so without the surgery, creating another – expensive – hurdle for transgender Russians.

And on top of the legal barriers the Russia society is becoming increasingly homophobic and transphoblic.

“In the opinion of the public, transvestites, transgender people and gays are all the same,” Vika said. “That’s actually what makes me the most sad.”

Gerasimova echoed her complaint. “I feel sorry for Russia when on state TV channels they basically equate transgender people with paeodophiles and call us sodomites. There are transgender people who have never even had sex!” she said.

Russian legislation hasn’t made it any easier to educate the public, according to Demedetsky.

“Russian authorities constantly want to outlaw things instead of dealing with them and bringing them into the legal field,” he said. “Now, under the law that protects children from gay propaganda, we cannot help teenagers who are struggling with gender identification.”

Life is very different for LGBT around the world, Russia is devolving back to its old ways and is LGBT people as it scapegoat.

So the next time you are at Pride and you look around just remember that in places like Moscow this could never happen.