Russia to ban adoption of children for transgender families

Russian parliament takes measures to exclude transgender adoptions

The Russian Parliament, the State Duma, gave the first reading to the bill that will ban the adoption of Russian children by citizens of foreign countries where transgender transition is legally permitted.

Foreign nationals have adopted 699 Russian children over the past seven years. The number of such adoptions has been decreasing. The process came to a standstill in 2024. All representative offices of foreign non-commercial organisations in the field of adoption were closed in Russia in 2023, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Anna Kuznetsova said, Interfax reports.

Over all the previous years, foreign adoptive parents took more than 120,000 children out of Russia. The fate of the adopted children is largely unknown.