454) applied to legal entities”. It also suggests that the police are the principal law-enforcement body expected to apply this law in practice. Also, the bill seeks to amend Article 21 of the Law on the Rights of a Child titled “Protection of family by the state” with paragraph (3) as follows: “The state ensures protection of a child from the propaganda of homosexuality for any purpose and under any form”. If adopted, this law may be arbitrarily applied against anybody who distributes information about gender identity and gender expression due to the complete lack of understanding of the differences between gender identity and sexual orientation. The primary target of this law would be mass media, LGBT organisations and LGBT initiative groups. Transphobic crimes are not recognised by the police, prosecutors or by the judiciary. Current Moldovan Criminal Code does not consider gender identity and/or gender expression as aggravating circumstances for a crime committed against trans and gender non-conforming people based on prejudice. Moreover, when transphobic crimes are reported to the police and/or prosecutor’s office, these law-enforcement authorities refuse to investigate them accordingly, justifying their inaction with the lack of criminal intent despite sufficient evidence. Thus, Moldovan state lacks and still refuses to provide effective legal remedies to survivors of transphobic hate crimes and to prosecute perpetrators of such offences. However, 2016 saw a considerable change. The Moldovan government, following the proposal by the Ministry of Justice, tabled a draft law on introducing amendments to the Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Offences to the Parliament. The draft law, backed by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (ODIHR/ OSCE), aims to provide the definition of bias-motivated crimes and offences that are inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Currently, the bill is being examined by parliamentary committees. At the same time, it should be noted that there are at least three ways that the mass media portrays trans people in Moldova. Some mass media outlets present trans people sensationally, i.e. as a subject of