Russian Sentenced to Forced Labor for Writing Gay Fan-Fiction
The 36-year-old woman was sentenced to 18 months of forced labor for writing gay fan-fiction about a K-pop group.
Alexandra Kuzyk was charged with “illegal production and distribution of pornographic materials” for writing a 2022 fan-fiction story about the K-pop group Stray Kids that depicted a same-sex romance and was later discovered by a mother on her daughter’s electronic device.
Kuzyk, a 36-year-old photographer and stylist, told the LGBTQ health site Parni+ that there were no printed versions of her fan-fiction stories at the time she was charged. She said the mother discovered the material through her daughter’s Telegram subscriptions and took screenshots of LGBTQ-related posts and sex scenes from the fan-fiction site Ficbook.
The mother then sent the screenshots to Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling, and censoring mass media, telecommunications, and information technology.
Police traced the story back to Kuzyk and seized books and electronics from her residence, including two laptops, an iPad, two smartphones, and 20 CDs.
Prosecutors sought a four-year prison sentence for Kuzyk, who admitted writing the fan-fiction as a longtime hobby but said she never earned money from it. Authorities said distributing the gay romance story violated Russia’s ban on “LGBT propaganda,” which prohibits material deemed to promote “non-traditional sexual relations.”
On May 8, Kuzyk was sentenced to 18 months of forced labor, with 10% of her earnings to be garnished by the state.
In 2023, the Russian Supreme Court declared the “international LGBT movement” an “extremist organization” that allegedly undermines Russian society and is linked to opponents of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Shortly afterward, authorities launched a sweeping crackdown on venues where LGBTQ people were believed to gather, including nightclubs, bookstores, and saunas.
Since Russia expanded its “LGBT propaganda” law — which originally banned LGBTQ-related material only for minors — to apply to adults, authorities have sought to purge the country of content acknowledging non-heterosexual identities, including health information or other material portraying homosexuality or same-sex relationships in a neutral light.
Over the past several years, Russians have been prosecuted for displaying images, clothing, or symbols associated with the LGBTQ community. In 2024, law enforcement agents even raided a “My Little Pony” convention for allegedly promoting homosexuality because of some characters’ perceived gender nonconformity and the belief that a rainbow-colored unicorn symbolized support for LGBTQ rights. Most recently, a man was deported after posting a positive review of a leather miniskirt, according to the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona.
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