Action: Challenge "Torsion Therapy"
This time, three activists who resisted "reversal therapy" were invited: Wu Laobai, Yanzi, and Xixilai to share their journey. Xixi is the party who appealed the homophobic case of textbooks and is a mountaineering enthusiast; Wu Laobai is one of the initiators of the three-truck "Lovers", and he often intervenes in public topics with artistic actions; the last guest Yanzi is the first domestic leader. The parties involved in "torsion therapy".
Sisi
In 2016, she began to engage in gay-related activities. In 2014, many NGOs found that many textbooks in colleges and universities classified homosexuality as a disease, and 50% of the books supported "reversal therapy", which mostly focused on professional textbooks such as mental health and mental illness. The South China Agricultural University, where Xixi is located, has a relatively closed campus environment and lacks correct content related to same-sex education.
So she started personal action in June 2017: starting with "Mental Health Education for College Students", she called various editors or publishers to suggest that they change the content of the book, but the process was not smooth. Many editors blocked Xixi's phone, or simply could not be reached. Later, Xixi and Qiubai carried out systematic lobbying together and got a certain response. For example, some publishing houses believe that many homosexuals will suffer from their homosexual identity, and individuals feel very painful, so it can be regarded as a kind of psychological disorder; among them, there are also some publishing houses that humbly change.
In July 2017, Xixi decided to sue. His original intention was to change the content of teaching materials in this way. However, the process of the case was twists and turns, and both the first and second instance were unsuccessful. Initially, it was an intellectual error for the defendant to pathologize homosexuals with his textbook, so the plaintiff appealed on the grounds that the editing quality was not up to standard. However, the defendant claimed that he was citing the documents of the Bureau of Radio, Film and Television as an objection, but the documents of the Bureau of Radio, Film and Television itself were wrong in their understanding and citation of the Third Edition of the Classification and Diagnosis Criteria for Mental Disorders in China. Sisi believes that it is these layers of misunderstandings and citations that make homosexuality so difficult to depathise.
As the plaintiff, Xixi also sought many experts and witnesses to refute the publisher's point of view, and proposed that the National Health and Family Planning Commission mainly used ICD as the standard for diagnosis, and ICD had already treated homosexuality. When she first filed a lawsuit, Xixi was worried that her actions would greatly affect the gay environment at the social level, but in retrospect, she found that the efforts to use the law to rectify the names of gays were actually very precious. She was also very moved that even if the case was lost, there were still many voices on the Internet that supported her and the "de-sickness of comrades".
swallow
In 2013, there was a news: a pair of Lala were discovered by their family members, so they were sent to "reversal therapy" by their parents; The introduction is mostly electric shock therapy to change sexual orientation.
Yanzi and his friends have tried TV media, industrial and commercial reporting, etc., to try to curb the limelight of these "reversal treatment" institutions, and later tried to use legal means to change the situation, but with little effect. So, he tried to go to the institution for "torsion therapy" by himself. Although he was mentally prepared, he was still very scared when he went. After seeing the horrors of "conversion therapy," he turned to the legal path, while also issuing statements to various agencies.
In 2014, the Beijing Haidian Court declared that the case was won, and stated that homosexuality is not a disease and that any institution with homosexuality treatment is illegal. In the following two years, there were many media reports on "torsion therapy". At the end of 2016, a gay man in Zhumadian was sent to Zhumadian Second People's Hospital by his family for compulsory treatment and was detained for 19 days. Finally, volunteers contacted the local police to rescue him. In 2017, Yanzi and friends filed a lawsuit for the comrade, based on the provisions of the Mental Health Law: any treatment must be based on the wishes of the person concerned, so the case was more successful.
In recent years, official mental health centers in Western countries, including Taiwan, have issued documents in support of "de-pathicization" of homosexuality, but this matter was not documented in China until 18 years ago. Therefore, in the soil of China, we urgently need relevant professional ethics documents to be issued.
He believes that only by uniting with the community and taking corresponding actions can the situation be truly changed. Debates on the Internet are important, but offline actions are the core of the change. "If you want to see the world change, be that change."
Wu Laobai
"Lovers" is a Chinese same-sex "reversal therapy" project co-sponsored by Lin He and Wu Laobai. At the end of 2018, Wu Laobai obtained a list of institutions performing "torsion therapy" from Yanzi, and interviewed them by phone one by one. Most agencies will refer to "sexual orientation disorder" and require expensive treatment. Some hospitals in Guangxi even issued absurd statements such as "homosexuality is the fate of a previous life". Therefore, Wu Laobai believes that when dealing with relevant institutions, keeping recordings and evidence is a better protection for himself.
On November 29, 2018, Wu Laobai launched crowdfunding. As of June 2019, a total of 810 people participated in the "Rainbow Path", forming a protest path of more than 2,000 kilometers from Shanghai to Beijing.
At the end of 2019, the field investigation came to an end, and Wu Laobai decided to use three methods such as "treatment for a non-existent disease", "why it has been 19 years", and "the Chinese Diagnostic Criteria for Mental Illness" still retains 'sexual orientation disorder'". The sentence forms a truck team, starting from Shanghai.
The experience of the first stop in Shanghai was not particularly rich, and some situations occurred. For example, the volunteers had an argument with the local psychological counselor, and when they went to the second institution, Wu Laobai directly recorded the previous recording. Take it out, interact with the agency doctor, get threatened by the other party and call the police, and they have since changed their tactics due to fears that the project will fail.
Such as: going to different places to check in, and spread the information to the Internet, so that others can see that someone is in action. In this process, there are also many positive feedbacks, such as being discovered by netizens, contacted and reported by reporters. Wu Laobai believes that the power of continuous voice cannot be underestimated.
The second stop was Nanjing, where Wu Laobai felt a great shock, especially in the face of the strong oppression of the doctors in Nanjing Renkang Hospital. This doctor's personal introduction is "professional treatment of homosexuality", and his way of talking makes people extremely nervous. He claims that "10-15 days can completely change." In this hospital, Wu Laobai tested the brain neurotransmitter detector. While worried about his injury, he also despised the doctor's constant emphasis on the high-end words he serves to the crowd. In fact, the brain neurotransmitter meter was reported in 2014 to have no diagnostic function. This shows that for homosexual treatment, the hospital does not follow a systematic way of consultation and treatment, so it is not scientific.
During this process, there were also many unexpected words, such as a doctor from the Broad Chinese Medicine Naokang Hospital who said "homosexuality is not a problem, but a disease"; and the hospital proposed to inject some "factors" for treatment, but refused to say the factors The specific ingredients and high prices were prescribed; in Shijiazhuang, there were doctors who asked Wu Laobai to stretch out his hand to take a pulse.
Of course, the course of the event also has an exciting part: more and more media attention along the way, many netizens support and discuss, and the smooth crowdfunding makes Wu Laobai more powerful. Another hospital in Tianjin said that homosexuality is not a problem. If you feel that you have an emotional problem, you can bring your relatives and friends over for joint counseling.
The last stop was Beijing, Wu Laobai arrived in the rainbow month of June 2019, considering the political sensitivity of Beijing, they removed the words on the three cars and replaced them with three red trucks themselves, and opened the passage for everyone Come to write what you want to express, and finally collected 98 groups of words. They went to the scene of the 798 incident and circled the Sina building three times to express their dissatisfaction with Sina's removal of gay illustrations.
There are still regrets in art practice, such as not being targeted enough and not solving specific problems, but the practice is always worth encouraging.
Finally, Wu Laobai said: "We have been looking forward to the moment when the street dances."
Q&A
In the Q&A session, the three sharers emphasized the importance of connecting with the community. Only by supporting each other can the individual's confidence be enhanced, so that individuals can understand that their own cognition and behavior are all right, just a few does not mean a mistake, no matter what they want Whatever you do for homosexuality or "conversion therapy", you need to be with the community and seek support in order to gather strength and go further.
Question: What is the difficulty in pushing medical institutions to completely abolish sexual orientation "reversal therapy"?
swallow:There is no cooperation and communication with legal practitioners; practitioners such as psychological consultants also need to be friendly to "comrades".
Wu Laobai:Non-stop, tireless advocacy, and connections to diverse communities.
Sisi:There is no relevant policy such as the Anti-Discrimination Act to strongly assist in the law.