Chinese trans woman awards thousands over forced electroshock “conversion therapy” hopes for change

A transgender woman in China who recently won 60,000 yuan (about $8,300) in compensation from a hospital that forced him to undergo several rounds of “transformational” electroshock therapy told CBS News that he hopes his experience will herald change in the LGBTQ+ community in his country.

“I hope that the transgender community will soon have protection measures and basic human rights, and will no longer suffer from medical treatment,” said the 28-year-old singer who goes by the pseudonym Ling’er.

Ling’er was admitted to hospital a year after coming out to her parents as transgender, she previously told UK newspaper The Guardian. He said in that interview that his parents were “very against” his gender identity and “felt that I was mentally unstable. So they sent me to a mental hospital.”

At the hospital, Ling’er was diagnosed with “anxiety and heterosexuality,” he told the Guardian. He said he was held for 97 days and was treated seven times for electroshock.

“It caused a lot of damage to my body,” said Ling’er. “Every time I received treatment, I fainted… I didn’t agree with it, but there was nothing I could do.”

Ling’er said that the electric shock caused him to have a heart problem, and now he needs medication to treat it.

The hospital “tried to ‘fix’ me, to make me conform to society’s expectations,” Ling’er told the Guardian.

The hospital declined to comment when contacted by the Guardian.

There is a legal ambiguity surrounding so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ people in China. The government removed homosexuality from the official list of mental illnesses in 2001, but the diagnosis of depression related to sexual orientation remained on the books until recently.

A 2017 Human Rights Watch report called on the Chinese government to ban hospitals and other medical facilities from admitting LGBTQ people to conversion therapy. HRW said that many victims of these treatments in China were forcibly brought to hospitals by their families.

“I feel good, I won my case,” Ling’er told CBS News. “I hope my case will be useful for transgender cases in China.”