In the first ruling of its kind, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that the rights of the divorced woman, who was blocked from seeing her children by Russian domestic courts in 2017, had been violated because of her gender identity. “It was clear from the domestic decisions … that the influence of the applicant’s gender identity on the assessment of her claim had been a decisive factor leading to the decision to restrict her contact with her children,” the court said. “The applicant had therefore been treated differently from other parents who also sought contact with their estranged children, but whose gender identity matched their sex assigned at birth.” Russia’s Presidential Press Office did not immediately reply to a