LGBT activist slams hospital for malpractice

A gay right activist on Monday has accused a Beijing hospital of providing conversion treatment, and called on the government to stop all hospitals from the practice.

Xiao Fan (pseudonym), a lesbian and an LGBT rights advocate, told the Global Times that she had reported the Beijing National Olympic Psychological Hospital to the Health Bureau of a district in Beijing.

She said she sought help from the hospital after breaking up with her girlfriend, and doctors said she would be fine "once the disease of homosexuality was cured."

She recalled that a doctor surnamed Zhou said "being a lesbian is a psychological disease" and the doctor presented many "successful" cases of conversion treatment. Another doctor at the hospital surnamed Liu guided Xiao Fan through a chromosomes test which showed that she was "an acquired lesbian" that could be treated. Xiao Fan described the test, which cost her 480 yuan ($77), as "ridiculous" and she felt cheated, as it was completed within 20 minutes with an iron stick. The Chaoyang Health Bureau confirmed that they received the report but did not provide further details.

"Authorities said they would announce preliminary investigation results within seven days," Xiao Fan said.

A hospital employee surnamed Li said that "we have yet to receive a notice. We need to talk with the complainant and discuss how to deal with this problem." "We hope publicizing the case could arouse the authorities' attention and improve their supervision of clinics or hospitals who conduct this so-called conversion therapy," Xiao Tie (pseudonym), the director of the Beijing LGBT Center, told the Global Times.

Xiao Tie said that many gay men and women chose conversion therapy, hypnosis and electroshock, but most of them did so because of family pressure and discrimination.

"Being a lesbian is not a psychological disorder," stressed Xiao Fan.

In December 2014, a Beijing court ruled a psychological counseling center should apologize and pay a gay man because it offered gay conversion therapy and violated the law.

LGBT rights activists nationwide hailed the court decision as a milestone in protecting gay rights, as it was the first time homosexuality had officially been defined as not being a psychological disorder. The third version of the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders (CCMD-3) in 2001 removed homosexuality and bisexuality from the list of disorders, following the lead of the 1980 version of the US Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.