Shocking Gay Conversion Accounts from China
Powerful first-hand accounts from people in China who have been subjected to forced “gay conversion therapy” have emerged in a new report. The country’s controversial practice has long been known about, but the Human Rights Watch study offers detailed testimony of a kind rarely shared from China.
“Gay conversion therapy” has been declared unethical, unscientific and harmful by the World Psychiatric Association - and it is effectively illegal in China.
But the report highlights 17 cases of forced “gay conversion therapy” between 2009 and 2017. The case studies detail verbal and mental abuse, forced medication and electric shock therapy taking place in Chinese hospitals. According to the advocacy director of the gay rights programme at Human Rights Watch, Boris Dittrich, it is also profitable. Doctors and clinics can charge up to 30,000 yuan (US$4530; £3,440, FJ$9438.08) to “treat” gay people.
The group is urging the Chinese government to ensure an end to such practices.
Why are people given shocks and pills?
Verbal abuse is the tip of the iceberg, according to the report. It says 11 of those interviewed were forced to take medication without being informed about its purpose or side-effects.
One 29-year-old gay man who underwent “treatment” at a public hospital in Fujian province three years ago said the doctors and nurses did not tell him what pills he was taking.
“They just told me they were supposed to be good for me and help with the progress of the ‘treatment’,” he explained.
Zhang Zhikun, a transgender woman, said she was forced to watch gay porn while being injected with a “colourless liquid”.
Five of those interviewed were subjected to electric shocks while being shown images or videos - or given verbal descriptions - of homosexual acts.
Gong Lei described his experience.
“The doctor asked me to relax because I was going to practise some kind of hypnosis and to think about sex scenes with my boyfriend - at that moment I felt pain in both wrists. I did not know what was happening.” Another interviewee remembered going through nine electroshock sessions during his two-month “treatment”. “My wrists and arms felt numb, my head too. But the most painful part was my stomach.”
Medics say there is no sound scientific evidence for people to be given such so-called treatment - in 2016 the World Psychiatric Association said “so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful”.
One 29-year-old gay man who underwent “treatment” at a public hospital in Fujian province three years ago said the doctors and nurses did not tell him what pills he was taking.