Hateful Russian bishop thinks Joe Biden ‘should be imprisoned’ for supporting transgender children
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, head of the Department of External Church Relations, took to Russian state TV earlier this month to attack the US president-elect (Russia 24)
A senior bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church has suggested that Joe Biden should be imprisoned for supporting transgender young people.
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin who serves as head of the Department of External Church Relations, took to Russian state TV earlier this month to attack the US president-elect for supporting the rights of trans children.
The Russia-24 segment noted an encounter between Biden and the parent of a transgender child at an October town hall, at which the Democrat promised to “flat out just change the law” to protect LGBT+ people.
Biden had told the mother: “The idea that an eight-year-old child or 10-year-old child decides, you know, ‘I decided I want to be transgender. That’s what I decided I’d like to be. It would make my life a lot easier.’ There should be zero discrimination.
“I promise you, there is no reason to suggest that there should be any right denied to your daughters.”
Joe Biden was unequivocal in his support for trans rights at the ABC town hall in Philadelphia (ABC)
Russian bishop suggests Joe Biden should be in prison
Responding to his comments, the bishop said: “With regard to Biden’s statement of the fact that an eight-year-old child has the right to change sex, I perceive this as blasphemous and I think that people who promote such ideas should be imprisoned.
“It is a crime to maim an eight-year-old child or even a 16-year-old girl, they should have the right to grow up in order to make such decisions [as an adult].”
The bishop also perpetuated the falsehood that gender confirmation surgeries are offered to children, while claiming that “it is no longer possible to return the original sex back” if people “change their mind”.
The religious leader continued to claim that “real gender change does not actually occur” in transgender people and “only the appearance is created”, before detailing a surgical gender confirmation procedure that – once more with feeling – has absolutely nothing to do with children.
He added: “Your hair will stand on end from what you read… to perform such an operation on an adult is nothing more than disfiguring and mutilating a person, but to expose children to such operations, as well as propaganda of this kind of operation, I think this is a crime which should be followed with a punishment.”
The segment was first translated by Chronicles Magazine.
Russian Orthodox bishop Hilarion Alfeyev with anti-LGBT+ evangelist Franklin Graham and US vice president Mike Pence (Twitter/Mike Pence)
Unsurprisingly, Hilarion has spoken much more warmly of the Trump administration, holding a behind-closed-doors meeting with US vice president Mike Pence in 2017 at a religious conference organised by anti-LGBT+ evangelist and PinkNews regular Franklin Graham.
The meeting with Pence came shortly after Hilarion attacked “ideology aimed at supporting sexual minorities and the propaganda of the homosexual life” in his address to the conference.
Russia seems thrilled with anti-trans victories in the UK
While the Russian state broadcaster may not be on board with the prospect of the new president-elect, the segment was much more cheery about the UK, where a recent court ruling that has effectively halted NHS prescription of puberty blockers to young transgender people.
Interviewer Yekaterina Gracheva suggested the court ruling was a “return to traditional values” for the UK, though the bishop warned it would be “too early to say that Europe is returning to its Christian values”.
