Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday announced a law banning gender reassignment in both medical and official identity documents. This measure, according to the Russian parliament, is designed to prevent the degeneration of Russian children and adults, but which causes alarm in the LGBT community.

The law was unanimously adopted on July 14 by the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, and five days later by the Senate, reminds EFE agency, which is quoted by Agerpres.

In Russia, any medical intervention, both surgical and medicinal, to change sex will be prohibited. According to the decision of the expert commission, only medical interventions for the treatment of congenital anomalies, genetic and endocrine diseases related to changes in the formation of genital organs in children will be allowed.

The new law prohibits the adoption of children by people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery and annuls marriages if one of the spouses has undergone such surgery. The Russian constitutional reform of 2020 established the concept of marriage as exclusively a union between a man and a woman.

Russia’s deputy health minister Oleg Salagai announced last June that there were 996 gender reassignment requests in Russia at that time. From 2018 to last year, more than 2,700 Russians changed their gender according to documents.

Russian transsexuals are now afraid of increasing “repression” and many of them see the only way out of Russia, writes the Spanish agency EFE.

“As the first transsexual politician in Russia, I can say that this law is not only discriminatory, but it prohibits the very existence of trans people in Russia. This is genocide against transsexuals,” Yulia Alyoshina, who is running for governor of the Siberian Altai Territory, said in a statement to the agency.

Meanwhile, Maxim, a transsexual who works with T-Center, the main NGO supporting transsexuals in Russia, says he is “planning to emigrate to Spain” because he believes “Russia is declining”.