On the anniversary of the transition ban, the BBC broadcasted a film about trans Russians

The BBC Russian service today, July 24, published a documentary film “Transpeople in (not) Russia. Three stories of acceptance, alienation and escape." The film is in Russian.

The release date of the film coincides with the date of mourning for the Russian LGBTQI+ community: exactly a year ago, president of Russia Vladimir Putin signed a law prohibiting medical and legal transitions in the country.

The heroes of the film are Ada, Francis and Allie. All of them are outside Russia for various reasons.

Francis is 47 years old and left Russia before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Putin's army. In 2017, he had a mastectomy to look more masculine. The guardianship service found out about this and took away his two adopted children. It was not possible to return them. The ECHR recently recognised Francis as a victim and awarded him compensation from the Russian authorities.

Ada’s parents forcibly sent her to a “rehabilitation centre” for conversion therapy. Being out of touch with reality, she missed the start of a full-scale invasion and almost missed her last chance to change her documents. Now she is in exile.

Alli left the country after the invasion began. At first they only worked and monitored the situation at the front. A year later, they were able to return to their body and, among other things, have a mastectomy - already abroad. Around the same time, such operations became prohibited in Russia.