Tricked into conversion therapy in Russia for being trans

On a remote farm in Siberia, a man handed Ada a knife. In front of them was a pig.

“Stop it,” he said. “If you want to proceed with the operation, you need to understand what castration means.”

Ada was 23 years old and transgender – she was tricked into taking her to a conversion therapy center after coming out to her family.

She says that in early summer 2021, a family member asked her to accompany her to Novosibirsk, where she would undergo major heart surgery.

Ada says that a man met them at the airport and after a long journey, the car suddenly stopped, Ada’s relative got out, the driver turned to Ada, demanded that she hand over her smartwatch and phone and told her bluntly : “Now we are going to cure you of your perversion.”

“It wasn’t until a package of warm clothes arrived two weeks later that I realized I wasn’t just there for two weeks or a month,” she adds, saying she was forced to take testosterone, pray and do manual labor, such as cutting firewood.

Confronted with the pig, she had a panic attack and did not do as she was told.

Nine months later, she managed to escape. Someone had left a phone that she used to call the police.

They sent officers to the center, who said Ada should be allowed to leave as she was being held against her will.

The BBC contacted the center, but the person we spoke to denied any knowledge of conversion therapy programs. We also contacted a relative of Ada, but did not receive a response.

Ada’s time there was the lowest point in a battle she says she has waged her entire life – first with her family, then with society at large, and now with Russia’s increasingly draconian LGBT laws.

Transgender people in Russia have had their human rights systematically eroded by the government’s broader political strategy of targeting vulnerable minorities, according to independent UN expert Graeme Reid.

A year after Russia passed a law banning gender reassignment surgery, he claims Russian transgender people have been deprived of their “most basic rights to a legal identity and access to healthcare.”

The new legislation also prevented people from changing their personal details on documents – Ada was one of the last people to have their name officially changed before the law came into force in July 2023.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has attacked the West and LGBT rights, saying he is fighting for traditional Russian values. At a cultural forum in St. Petersburg last year, he dismissed trans people as “transformers or trans-somethings.”

And in late 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice announced another new decision, declaring the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization.

It didn’t matter that no such organization existed. Anyone found guilty of supporting what is now considered “extremist activity” faces up to 12 years in prison. Even displaying a rainbow flag risks a fine and a possible four-year prison sentence for repeat offending.

In one of the first court cases under the new law, two tearful and terrified-looking young men appeared in court in the city of Orenburg in March. Their crime was running a bar frequented by the LGBT community. Their case is still ongoing.

After escaping central Siberia, Ada moved to a small apartment in Moscow, where she offered other trans people a safe place to stay. But the new laws were the last straw for her.

“I couldn’t stay any longer… I had to leave Russia,” she says, speaking from her new home in Europe.

For Francisco, who left Russia in 2018, the new laws mean he will probably never return home. Even before they were introduced, authorities in his hometown of Yekaterinburg had already taken action against him.

“For as long as I can remember, I knew I wasn’t a girl,” he says. But in 2017, he married Jack, gave birth to three children and adopted two more.

“I told my husband, ‘Maybe I’m wrong, but I think I might be transgender.’”

They agreed that Francisco would consult a doctor. “They said, ‘You’re transgender, 100%.’ I felt much better. Everything fell into place… I understood – this is who I am.”

He began the transition process, but before long local authorities intervened. His two adopted children were taken into care and Francis was told his biological children would be next.

The family left Russia and has since lived in Spain.

Ally, who is non-binary and uses the “they” pronoun, left Russia in 2022 following the large-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was a political decision, unrelated to pressures on the LGBT community, but those pressures still took their toll.

When Ally was 14, someone asked, “Are you a girl or a boy?”

“It gave me a feeling of joy – I was so happy that she couldn’t tell from my outward appearance.”

Years later, they told a friend, “’I don’t think I’m a girl, but I don’t think I’m a boy either.’

“She looked at me and said, ‘Oh, okay. Check out. And then we continued eating soup. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Ally now lives in Georgia and last year decided to have a mastectomy. Close family members still don’t know.

“If I had gone to my parents and said, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m a lesbian,’ it would have been easier than saying, ‘Mom, Dad, I cut off my breasts and I want you to call me them.’”

Although Ally had a medical diagnosis before the new Russian law banning sex change and had chosen a new gender-neutral name, it is no longer possible to change passports and other important documents.

Francisco has the same problem. All of his documents include his old name, which causes confusion when he is asked to present an ID or fill out forms. But he says life in Spain is good. He found work at a textile factory that he loves.

Like Ally, Francisco recognizes that the climate of intolerance fostered by the new anti-LGBT laws has made relationships with his family more difficult.

“My mother doesn’t talk to me anymore,” he says. “She thinks I dishonored our family and she is ashamed to look her neighbors in the eye. It’s like I’m a freak, or a thief, or I’ve murdered someone.”

And living abroad as a Russian while the war in Ukraine continues can add another layer of complexity, says Ally: “In Russia, the authorities and conservative parts of society don’t like us because we are transgender. Abroad people don’t like us because we are Russian.”

All the trans community really wants, Ada says, is for “people to be able to dress however they want and not be afraid of getting hit… I just want people to stop thinking about how to survive.”

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