Russian couple registers ‘first same-sex marriage’

A lesbian couple tied the knot in Russia in a quiet ceremony seen as the first such marriage in the country where gay unions are illegal. The marriage on Friday went through because one of the women was born male but is now transgender and undergoing hormone therapy, said Anna Anisimova, an activist working with Vykhod, an LGBT rights group in Saint Petersburg. Online pictures from the wedding showed the smiling pair, one blonde, the other brunette, sporting lacy wedding gowns and holding bouquets as they signed official paperwork at a Russian civil registry office.

Formally it was a wedding between a man and a woman but de-facto it was between two women. It was the first (LGBT wedding) in Russia. Both brides wore white dresses.

Anna Anisimova, LGBT rights activist

Officials at the registry did not attempt to stop the wedding, but local lawmaker Vitaliy Milonov, who was the most ardent lobbyist for Russia’s notorious anti-gay “gay propaganda” law before it went into effect, fumed that he would contest it. The 2013 law, which makes it illegal to distribute information about homosexuality to children, has been decried by the United Nations and seen by homosexuals as criminalisation of their orientation.

(The wedding is) an insult against thousands of Russian families. I intend to call for its annulment.

Vitaliy Milonov, Russian lawmaker

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