A 28-year-old trans woman in China has won her lawsuit against the hospital and doctor that subjected her to three months of traumatic and painful electroshock conversion therapy treatments, the Guardian reports.
The woman, a performance artist who goes by the name Ling’er, said she hoped the victory would help others in the LGBTQ+ community protect their rights.
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“In China, the situation for transgender people is not very optimistic,” she said. “There’s a lack of protection for this group.”
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Ling’er asserted in her suit that the enforced conversion therapy treatments had violated her personal rights. Her victory came with a small award of about $8,000 U.S.
Ling’er was taken to a hospital in Qinhuangdao City in 2022 after coming out to her parents as transgender the previous year. They were “very opposed” to her gender identity, Ling’er said, and “felt that I wasn’t mentally stable. So they sent me to a mental hospital.”
There, she was tied to a bed with restraints and diagnosed with “anxiety disorder and discordant sexual orientation.” Ling’er identifies as heterosexual.
She was kept in hospital for 97 days over her objections and subjected to seven sessions of electroshock therapy.
“It caused serious damage to my body,” Ling’er said. “Every time I underwent the treatment, I would faint … I didn’t agree to it, but I had no choice.”
Chinese law dictates patients can’t be forcibly subjected to psychiatric treatment barring a threat to their safety or others’.
Ling’er’s hospital physician said in testimony that she might pose a risk to the safety of her parents if they killed themselves because of her gender identity, according to a report in Chinese media.
The night before the electroshock treatments, Ling’er was restricted to a diet of bread and milk. During the treatments, her arms and legs were fixed and something was taped to her hands, Ling’er recalled. With each session, “as soon as the power was turned on, I fainted.” She says she suffers from heart arrhythmias in the aftermath.
During her internment, Ling’er was forced to cut her long hair and conform to a male gender identity.
“For three months, they forced me to wear men’s clothes step by step. It was painful and helpless for me,” she said.
There are a few precedents for Ling’er’s legal victory.
In 2017, a gay man in Henan province was awarded a small settlement after he was forced to stay in a psychiatric hospital for 19 days and take medications to “treat” his homosexuality.
In 2014, a judge ruled a facility falsely claimed it could “cure” a man’s homosexuality when he was subjected to hypnosis and electroshock therapy without consent.
While China removed homosexuality from an official list of psychiatric disorders in 2001, it retained a diagnosis for “sexual orientation distress,” leaving the door open for therapies claiming to cure it.
After she was discharged and returned home, Ling’er discovered that her parents had removed her women’s clothes and cosmetics and prepared a men’s wardrobe for her.
Months later, after Ling’er’s parents confiscated her hormone pills, she decided to leave her hometown. She packed a small pink suitcase, she said, found a place to stay for one night, and left by car the next day.
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