Words from Jail: "Optimism Is My Diagnosis"

As part of a series profiling political prisoners, Mediazona published the story of a Russian trans man who was arrested for transferring $10 to the National Bank of Ukraine. He was sentenced to 12 years in a women's penal colony where he is subjected to bullying, denied medical treatment, and kept in solitary confinement.

Mark Kislitsyn is a trans man and activist who was living in Moscow. He was a volunteer at a mutual aid organization called Tsentr T (Center T) that helps non-binary and trans Russians with housing, food, and cleaning. He even gave his bed to homeless people and slept on the floor until they could find a job and a place to live.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kislitsyn connected with Ukrainians to support aid efforts. He decided to transfer R856 ($10) to an acquaintance's account in the National Bank of Ukraine to help civilians. On February 28, 2022, he protested the war, for which he was fined R10,000 ($110). 

In July 2023, Kislitsyn was exiting a building when a grey van appeared. Masked FSB agents quickly pushed him against a wall to handcuff him as he screamed, "Help me!" Authorities charged him with treason. They used his journal, in which the 27-year-old expressed his wish for the war to end, and his phone, which had anti-Putin memes on it, as evidence to convict him. Kislitsyn maintains his innocence.

Despite the fact that Kislitsyn identifies as a transgender man, six months later a Moscow municipal court sentenced him to 12 years in prison in a Novosibirsk women's penal colony. The personnel at the IK-9 prison said they would turn him into a "second Navalny," by forcing Kislitsyn to wear dresses and skirts. The prison guards also said they would refer to the activist by his deadname, have refused to give him his hormonal treatment, and regularly sent him into solitary confinement.

Yan Dvorkin, the director of Tsentr T, who met Kislitsyn during his time as a volunteer, told Mediazona, "The administration [of the Novosibirsk jail] used phrases such as, 'First you are a liberal, then a faggot, and then you sell out your motherland.'" Dvorkin said that such statements are threats "to his health and life."

In a letter from prison, Kislitsyn wrote, "In a situation of pressure, you understand that you feel not as much fear as surprise: how foolish, funny, powerless are those who try to intimidate me." The activist refuses to give up his beliefs, his sense of belonging in his country, or even to let his circumstances spoil his mood. "Optimism is my diagnosis," he said.