“They forced me to castrate a pig because I wanted gender-affirming surgery.” Ada Blakewell, 23, a non-binary transgender woman, was undergoing hormone therapy when in August 2022 her parents took her to a private center in the Altai region to undergo “masculinization” an attempt to change her to her birth sex. “My parents, with the help of third parties, sent me to an official center where they tried to take me through what they would call ‘conversion therapy’,” Blakewell told The Moscow Times. “They got me to do things like construction, physical activity, everything that society considers especially masculine.” “Then there were some, what we might call ‘unique’ activities.
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Activists say the designation could put L.G.B.T.Q. people and their organizations under threat of criminal prosecution for something as simple as displaying the rainbow flag.