A women’s prison and the withdrawal of hormone therapy. The story of trans activist Mark Kislitsyn, sentenced to 12 years for transferring $10 to Ukraine

“Help!” is all the short passer-by with shoulder-length hair manages to shout as two masked men jump out of a hastily parked minibus, pin him against a wall and handcuff him. One of them holds him by the back of the neck and forces him, bent double, into the vehicle.

The next day, state media would report that a “transgender and LGBT activist” had been detained in Moscow for “financial assistance” to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This is Mark Kislitsyn, 27, a volunteer at the Centre T, a Russian initiative that helps transgender and non-binary people.

Mark was detained on the morning of July 12, 2023, in Moscow. He was charged with high treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code) for transferring 865 roubles to an account at the National Bank of Ukraine. He was then taken to a pre-trial detention centre in the city of Orel, where he spent the first three months after his arrest.

On December 23, 2023, the Moscow City Court sentenced Mark to 12 years in a general regime penal colony and a fine of 200,000 roubles (about $2,000), sending him to serve his sentence in women’s penal colony IK-9 in Novosibirsk, some 1,750 miles east of Moscow.

Kislitsyn was born in the Krasnodar krai in southern Russia, lived in Orel, and then moved to Moscow. Mark became a volunteer several years ago, Freila Sirin Rigiri, head of the Centre T’s mutual aid service, tells Mediazona.

“Responsive, straightforward, warm-hearted,” Freila recalls. “At the same time, he was always optimistic… I was scared and pained to watch the video of his arrest: Mark is a very gentle person, and here he is being grabbed by these brutes.”

Yan Dvorkin, the head of the Centre T, testified as a defence witness and gave a character reference for Mark.

“Mark took in people who were left on the street and needed help, sleeping on the floor himself and living like that for weeks until people found work. Or he would travel across Moscow to bring food or clean the flat of someone who was severely depressed. He got involved in fundraising for people who needed help, always tried to support others,” Dvorkin recalls.

Kislitsyn sent the money to the Ukrainian bank account out of humanitarian considerations, the head of the Centre T believes.

“It was the same desire to support people,” Dvorkin says. “Against the backdrop of everything that is happening, my speech in court was so naive… On the other hand, it was the only truth I could tell about Mark—he is a person who has repeatedly helped and supported others.”

A piece of paper with the words “No to war” and memes. How the prosecution proved the trans activist’s guilt

The court verdict states that on the night of February 24–25, 2022, Kislitsyn transferred $10—865 roubles at the then exchange rate—to a National Bank of Ukraine account “open for fundraising for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”, the details of which were sent to him by an acquaintance, a “resident of Kyiv”.

Grishin, an officer of the FSB Directorate for the Orel Region—who later appeared in court as one of the prosecution witnesses—testified that in correspondence with the “resident of Kyiv”, Kislitsyn had previously “repeatedly expressed negative views” about the Russian army and politics, and “also received instructions” from the Ukrainian.

What exactly these instructions consisted of, the prosecution never specified in court, lawyer Anna Kinchevskaya tells Mediazona. The FSB tried to portray Kislitsyn’s acquaintance as “posing a threat and more dangerous than he actually was”, she believes.

“Mark was chatting—I think like many people in Russia—with people from Ukraine,” the lawyer says. “He had a comrade in the trans community. They had not met in person, they corresponded remotely. He sent him an account, and Mark decided to help. And the indictment used wording that the acquaintance from Ukraine ‘instructed’ Mark or they ‘discussed how to obstruct mobilisation in Russia’—all of this is absolutely untrue.”

On February 28, 2022, Kislitsyn held an anti-war picket, after which the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow fined him 10,000 roubles, or about $100.

In addition to Kislitsyn’s laptop and phone, seized during the search in the criminal case, the indictment and verdict describe in detail other items found in his flat: a piece of paper with the words “No to war” in red, two Ukrainian hryvnias (approximately 5 U.S. cents as of today rate), a white fabric ribbon with the words “Peace to the world”, postcards reading “Light is stronger than darkness” and “Russia’s horoscope for today”, a book titled “MHG: On the History of the Moscow Helsinki Group,” and an issue of the Novaya Rasskaz-Gazeta magazine for February 2023, “containing criticism of the decision to start the ‘special military operation’.” The prosecution presented all of the above in court as evidence of Kislitsyn’s guilt, lawyer Kinchevskaya says.

“In the absence of any real evidence, they found a diary on his computer in which Mark left his reflections: on how he was worried about the war, how he wanted it to end—and this diary was also cited as evidence,” she says.

Insisting on Kislitsyn’s “anti-government stance”, the prosecution presented in court an expert analysis of memes he had saved. One of them is a photo collage of a meeting between Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in February 2022. In the photos, the officials are sitting at a long table several metres apart. “Vladimir Vladimirovich, we’re getting absolutely slaughtered out there,” Shoigu “says”. Putin, seemingly mishearing, asks, “Are they saying ‘ceasefire’?” “No, I said we’re slaughtered,” Shoigu “continues”. “What? Are they asking for peace?” Putin can’t hear. “This bloody table—he can’t hear a thing,” the next frame shows Lavrov. “Future centuries? I’m a king?” Putin asks again.

“First you’re a liberal, then a faggot, then you’ll sell your motherland”. A trans man in a women’s prison

After the start of the war, the Prosecutor General’s Office threatened Russians with treason cases for donations to the Ukrainian military, and as early as May 2022, Sberbank reported the “rapid identification of fundraisers for the Ukrainian Armed Forces”. There were several subsequent tightenings of the law—up to and including life imprisonment, which Vladimir Putin introduced in April 2023.

The verdict states that Kislitsyn, who never pleaded guilty, told the court that, “worried about the start of the ‘special military operation’ and protesting against it”, he did indeed transfer money on the first day of the war “out of humanitarian considerations” to an account whose details were provided by his acquaintance from Ukraine. But Kislitsyn did not know that the bank account might have been “created to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces”, as the prosecution claimed.

“Mark didn’t understand that this was a criminally prohibited act: although the article [on high treason] in that wording was introduced in 2012, it hadn’t been applied to anyone since then; it only began to be applied with the start of the special military operation,” lawyer Kinchevskaya says. “In Mark’s case, the prosecution did not prove in any way where the money went, what it was spent on. What specific ‘harm to security’ was caused by Mark—all of this was not discussed [in court] and not proven.”

The presiding judge of the Moscow City Court in Kislitsyn’s case was Andrei Suvorov, who in August 2023 sentenced Alexei Navalny to 19 years in prison in the extremism case. Suvorov considered Kislitsyn’s testimony “clearly contrived and untrue”, and the defence’s evidence insufficiently convincing. The verdict ends with a mention that Kislitsyn has “female genetic sex”, therefore he must serve his sentence in a general regime penal colony—women do not get sent to the strict regime prisons in Russia.

For Kislitsyn, “respect for his transgender status is fundamentally important,” says Kinchevskaya.

“When speaking in court, he emphasised that he wasn’t asking for any special treatment,” she explains. “He was prepared for the consequences—whether being held in a men’s colony, solitary confinement, or other outcomes.”

According to Kinchevskaya, transferring Mark to a women’s penal colony mitigates certain risks, “such as violations of the inmate’s sexual integrity and, overall, threats to his safety.” However, since his arrival at IK-9 in Novosibirsk in early August 2023, the colony’s administration has refused to provide him with hormone replacement therapy medication.

“They force him to wear skirts, dresses, low-cut blouses, and headscarves. They make him shave and use his deadname,” she says. “We hope to secure access to HRT through the medical unit since he had been receiving it throughout his time in the detention centre.”

Kislitsyn’s support group shares excerpts from his letters on Telegram.

“He wrote about already feeling the negative effects of being deprived of hormone therapy for such a long time, while those around him fail to grasp how critically important it is,” says Yan Dvorkin, head of the Centre T.

Dvorkin explains that hormone therapy helps transgender people overcome gender dysphoria and socialise effectively. However, the process can take years, or even decades, to achieve lasting psychological stability. “Eventually, they find emotional equilibrium and a sense of comfort in their bodies,” he says. “Often, only after completing their transition can they interact with others and integrate into society with confidence.”

To maintain these changes, Dvorkin stresses, hormone therapy must be lifelong.

“When it’s interrupted, the physical and emotional progress starts to reverse. Gender dysphoria resurfaces, making life unbearable, often leading to severe depression, anxiety, and a heightened risk of suicide,” he says.

Freila Sirin Rigiri says the sudden withdrawal of hormone therapy is devastating to mental health. “There are physical health problems, of course, but the main issue is that he’s been stripped of the ability to feel like himself, to come into his own. If I were in his position, I’d probably have smashed my head against a wall by now,” she admits.

Kislitsyn’s supporters initially hesitated to go public, fearing the added attention would endanger a transgender person in prison, Dvorkin acknowledges. During the investigation, Kislitsyn “endured insults and mockery,” he says.

“He was under enormous pressure to plead guilty—they threatened him with a life sentence but promised seven or eight years if he confessed,” Dvorkin explains. “There were even discussions about forcibly changing his legal documents to reflect a female identity. But Mark refused to plead guilty—this was non-negotiable for him.”

A video of Kislitsyn’s arrest, Dvorkin notes bitterly, “gets circulated every time new measures targeting LGBT people are introduced in Russia. They claim Mark is a ‘transgender person sponsoring Ukraine,’ using his case as an example to portray transgender people as ‘dangerous’ and ‘acting against Russia’.”

In prison, Kislitsyn has been classified as “prone to extremist activity,” Dvorkin says.

Since November 2024, Kislitsyn has been sent to an isolation punishment cell, or SHIZO, three times: twice for seven days and once for 15 days. He spent New Year’s in solitary confinement, as he mentioned in one of his letters.

“The administration has said things like, ‘First you’re a liberal, then a faggot, and next you’ll sell your motherland,’ and ‘We’ll make you the next Navalny,’” Dvorkin says, referring to the treatment Kislitsyn has endured in prison. “We, of course, see this as a direct threat to his health and safety.”

“In situations like this, you find that fear gives way to amazement—at just how foolish, petty, and powerless those trying to intimidate me really are,” Mark Kislitsyn writes in one of his letters. “They can annoy me with minor inconveniences, but whatever they do, they cannot make me renounce my beliefs, lose my connection to my country, or even ruin my mood (being an optimist is a diagnosis).”

Editor: Maria Klimova