Scared straight?--Conversion therapists prey on fears, misconceptions about homosexuality (3)

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Scared straight?--Conversion therapists prey on fears, misconceptions about homosexuality (3)

By Zhang Yiqian (Global Times) 11:19, September 03, 2013

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In the US, both New Jersey and California have placed a ban on conversion therapy. Mainstream health organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association are also critical of such claims.

But in China, such therapy still exists because medical regulation in China is scanty and poorly enforced, Lu said. There is no overarching law banning this practice.

When a Global Times reporter called up a self-described psychological service club that showed up on Baidu search results as providing conversion therapy, an anonymous worker there said they need to meet with the patient first and determine if he or she is "truly gay." If he or she is, then there's nothing the club can do to turn around that sexual orientation.

But in Lu's opinion, it is ridiculous to think there is such a thing as "conditionally gay," and claims of tests are nothing but pseudoscience.

"In China now, many people believe you can perform a test on someone to see if that person is gay or not, but there is no scientific test to test someone's sexuality," Lu said.

Money is a big motivation for some clinics that offer this practice, Jiang said. But based on the center's interviews at this stage, no one has actually changed their sexual orientation as a result of the treatment.

In 2001, the third version of the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders (CCMD-3), a clinical guide used in China for the diagnosis of mental disorders published by the Chinese Society of Psychiatry, 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 (DSM).

However, the CCMD-3 still contained a case of "ego-dystonic sexual orientation," meaning someone has a sexual orientation or an attraction that conflicts with one's desired image. This diagnosis was largely removed from the DSM in the 1987 edition.

"We hope to have it completely removed from being a disease," Xin said. "But we need data to support us, to see what kind of problems LGBT groups are having, and how conversion therapy has affected the group."