Transgender Issues
In Tsarist Russia, young women would sometimes pose as men or act like tomboys. This was often tolerated among the educated middle classes, with the assumption that such behavior was asexual and would stop when the girl married. However, cross-dressing was widely seen as immoral behavior, punishable by the Church and later the government.
In Soviet Russia, sex change operations were first tried during the 1920s but became prohibited until the 1960s, when they were often done by Russian endocrinologist Aron Belkin, who was something of an advocate for transgender people until his death in 2003.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In Russia
Famous quotes containing the word issues:
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)