A Chinese artist and a gay policeman launched a peaceful protest campaign to denounce the conversion therapies practiced by some hospitals in China. Here’s the story of the event.

Inspired by the film “Three Billboards”, this protest campaign is organized by Chinese artist Wu Qiong and a gay police friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) to demonstrate the absurdity of the so-called “conversion” therapy that some Chinese hospitals practice.

Although removed from the official list of mental illnesses in 2001, the termology used to talk about homosexuality and bisexuality still includes vague references to “sexual orientation disorders”. This is why some doctors propose to treat homosexuals through psychological and medical treatment, sometimes even offering electroshock therapy.

Wu Qiong therefore had the idea of marching through the streets of 8 major Chinese cities in a procession of 3 trucks with slogans posted on them to raise public awareness of this problem: “Treat a disease that does not exist”, “Sexual orientation is still part of the criteria for diagnosing psychiatric illnesses”, “Homosexuality was officially removed from the list of mental illnesses 19 years ago. Why is this still happening?”.

At the same time, Wu Qiong, who calls himself a heterosexual, makes appointments with doctors pretending to be a homosexual who wants to “treat himself” in order to demonstrate the absurdity of these treatments.

Homosexuality has no longer been a crime since 1997, but the subject remains largely taboo in China, especially among the older generation, who go so far as to say that it simply does not exist here. Among young people, acceptance is much wider, but the authorities prefer to maintain the omerta on this subject as much as possible and almost systematically block any events that may be linked to it. Homosexuality is also often part of the campaign to “purge” unhealthy topics from the media, making it difficult for the LGBT community to normalize.

For the time being, Wu Qiong has not yet met with any opposition from the authorities and he is pleased that his hashtag launched on Chinese social networks has not been censored. On Wednesday, January 16, a few days after its launch, it had 6 million views.