Running from Russia, running from hate: A trans girl’s flight to survival

Global Voices reports on Isabelle, a transgender woman from Magnitogorsk, Russia, who decided she could no longer stay in the country after a 2023 law banned gender transition and made continuing her hormone therapy illegal. She and two other trans Russians crossed into Croatia and then Hungary while seeking asylum, but Hungarian police detained them for fifty days in an immigration jail before sending them back to Croatia. Isabelle finally reached Spain in December 2025 and filed for asylum there in January 2026, one case among the LGBTQ+ Russians navigating a European asylum system that weighs each claim individually rather than granting protection automatically.

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