As an activist in a nurse's uniform knelt over a patient, wielding a giant needle, the Beijing court began hearing a landmark case on gay conversion treatment.
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The plaintiff, who is gay and has given his name only as Xiao Zhen, says the Xinyu Piaoxiang clinic in Chongqing traumatised him when he was electro-shocked after being told to have sexual thoughts involving men.
He is also taking action against China's top Internet search engine, Baidu, for running advertisements by the facility.
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"It's the first case about anti-conversion therapy in China," said Xiao Tie, 28, executive director of the Beijing LGBT Centre, which is backing the legal action.
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Most people who claim that they have been successfully "converted" by the therapy only say so in order to stop the distressing treatments, she added.
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Nonetheless the lucrative industry persists in countries from Singapore to Britain and the United States -- where reports of electro-shock use have added to momentum for a ban.
Zhang Rui, 21, who is in charge of the Beijing LGBT Centre's psychological counselling programme, said advocates hope the case will help change Chinese public perceptions of gays as suffering from mental illness.
"We're here to tell even more people that conversion therapy is not scientific," she said. "Homosexuality can't be 'cured.'"
Source-AFP
