Just to follow up on this: now there's no problem whatsoever, and I can log into Kucoin and it's like business as usual--very strange. I wasn't kidding when I started this thread; they wouldn't let me access the site without going past a KYC step, and that had never happened before. Sometimes they'll want to send a SMS as a security step, but this wasn't that.
Could also be Kucoin selectively enforcing KYC hoping for people to abandon their accounts with funds in them
Yeah, you always worry about crap like that, but I think Kucoin is a better exchange than that. Hopefully. I don't know too much about them but have been using them for a while--never for large trades, as I'm not a trader, and I never kept more than dust on Kucoin for longer than an overnight. I don't think they were trying to scam me, but I don't know what they were doing to be honest.
Very weird. Guess I'll lock the thread
now soon. I'll keep it open for a little bit in case anyone wants to comment and hopefully people see that I wasn't forced to do the KYC procedures.