MOSCOW, July 19. /TASS/. The Federation Council (upper house of parliament) on Wednesday unanimously voted to approve a bill that bans gender reassignment surgery.

Once enacted, the bill would amend the Law on the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Russian Citizens by adding an article prohibiting medical or surgical interventions and the use of pharmaceuticals or other medicines for gender reassignment purposes.

However, the ban would not extend to medical interventions aimed at treating congenital anomalies and birth defects, as well as genetic and endocrine diseases associated with atypical genitalia in children.

Performing such exempted medical interventions would be allowed only by decision of the medical commission of a healthcare facility subordinate to the Russian Health Ministry. The bill also suggests amending the new version of the law on Russian Citizenship, adding a provision under which a Russian national’s passport will be considered invalid 90 days after such changes are made to the civil registry.

The bill would also amend the Russian Family Code to allow any person to legally file for divorce if their spouse changes gender in their civil registry records. In addition, the new Family Code rules under the bill stipulate that individuals who have reassigned their gender would be ineligible to adopt children or be foster parents.

Following any such medical intervention, the medical commission would issue medical reports on the conformity of the given patient’s gender characteristics with a specific gender. Under the bill, changes to civil registry records could only be made based on such reports. The bill also calls for amending the Law on Russian Citizenship by adding a provision that would automatically invalidate a Russian national’s internal passport (a Russian citizen’s primary identification document — TASS) within 90 days after the person’s civil registry records are updated to reflect such changes.

The law comes into effect on the day of its official publication.