Law enforcement agents have detained transgender woman Katerina Mayers, Republic and Ostorozhno.Media report citing her friends.
Katerina Mayers. Photo: Instagram
Mayers’s friends also claim that she is facing a criminal case over the recent attempt to leave the country in December last year but it is not clear under which Criminal Code article.
Mayers has been released.
“I have just been let go. I am under a recognisance,” she wrote on her Telegram channel.
The foreign travel restriction could be linked to the fact that the woman used to work for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) prior to transitioning.
The law enforcement agents arrived at Mayers’s residence at 7:30 AM and took her to the FSB Investigative Department, her friends said. Her home was searched, the agents confiscated her personal diary, FSB meeting protocols, LGBT-related books, and an oestradiol-based hormone therapy treatment flask.
In December 2022, Mayers was not allowed to fly out of Russia. The woman spoke to Ostorozhno.Media and said that her documents were seized in the airport. In return, she was handed a notice that she is banned from leaving the country.
The border control agents said that Mayers had access to state secrets while working for the FSB to justify the decision.
In January 2022, Mayers came out as transgender. “Hi. I am Katerina (Katya, Kat, Kathrine…). I am a transgender girl. I have been on hormone replacement therapy for a year. And now I will share my changes here. I just hope for your sincere understanding, support, kindness, warmness, and bright smiles…,” she wrote.
