Russia: First Same-Sex Marriage Enabled 'As One of the Brides Used to be a Man'

Two women have got married in Russia, a country where homosexual unions are illegal.

The couple managed to tie the knot as one of the women was born as a man and she is currently undergoing hormone therapy to change her sex.

"The official registration by two women happened because one of them is a man according to the documents," Anna Anisimova, an activist working with Vykhod, homosexual rights group in Saint-Petersburg, told news agency AFP.

"Formally it was a wedding between a man and a woman but de-facto it was between two women."

Homosexuality was decriminalised in Russia in 1993 and the country is a signatory to numerous international human rights treaties banning the discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals (LGBT).

However, the country introduced in 2014 an anti-gay law which bans "homosexual propaganda". It prohibits "public actions aimed at propaganda of pederasty, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism among minors" and carries fines up to $1,600 (£979).

"It was the first [LGBT wedding] in Russia. Both brides wore white dresses," Anisimova concluded.

A Russian legislator announced he would try to annul the marriage between the two women.

Vitaly Milonov, an opponent of gay rights, said the wedding was an "insult" to Russian families and traditional values.

"There are certain moral standards which it is vital to implement," he said. "These mad people should be banned altogether from getting married."