A/HRC/44/53 49. Several countries, with their own compendiums of illnesses or that have not yet incorporated global classifications into their national system, continue pathologizing nonheteronormative sexual orientations and non-cisnormative gender identities.88 In the Islamic Republic of Iran, individuals who inevitably fail at “converting” their sexual orientation will often be pressured to undergo surgery, in the belief that gender-affirming surgery will neutralize their orientation.89 3. Faith-based 50. Faith-based organizations that actively promote, and often perpetrate, practices of “conversion therapy” act on the premise that there is something inherently evil in diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.90 In a study conducted in Australia, the purpose of religious counselling in those contexts was shown to make the subjects feel that the problem was their identity. Trans people from Malaysia and Viet Nam have described being forced to see leaders of faith-based organizations to be “healed” by prayers.91 In Indonesia, a group created branches in 40 cities, offering mentoring so that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender-diverse persons could “live with heterosexual identities and be comfortable on the path of local religion and customs”.92 In the Russian Federation, there have been reports of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender-diverse children being taken to church and beaten with rods while others prayed for them. 93 51. In many faith-based settings, approaches are often aimed at treating a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity as an addiction that can be overcome by following the tenets of a spiritual advisor, but can also include practices modelled on 12-step programmes supporting the underlying premise of “sexual brokenness” or “gender confusion”,94 an approach in which the dividing boundaries between religion and psychotherapy are blurred. 52. Approaches include treatment of great cruelty. In 2015, the New Jersey Superior Court, United States, ruled against a Jewish “conversion” organization, finding it liable for violating the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. Defendants testified to having been blindfolded and pummelled with basketballs, bound with duct tape, rolled up into blankets and subjected to anti-gay slurs.95 Anecdotal evidence indicates the existence of camps or “rehabilitation facilities” in Kenya and Somalia, where captives receive an Islamic education and are subjected to beatings, shackling and food deprivation, among other things.96 An investigation conducted in 2017 in the United States revealed cases of mistreatment in camps organized by Christian institutions, where teenage children were left in isolation and beaten because of their sexual orientation;97 a trans man from South Carolina described being pressured into going to a religious-based “conversion therapy” camp by his parents and church when he was 13 years of age, after struggling with his gender identity. According to his testimony, he was shamed at the camp and told repeatedly that his actions, thoughts and desires were sinful. He reported that others at the camp were subject to multiple electric shocks while simultaneously being shown pornographic images 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 12 The Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders, third edition, for example, still lists “ego-dystonic sexual orientation” as a mental disorder. See China LBT Rights Initiative, “Discrimination faced by lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in China”, 2014. See www.ilgaasia.org/news/2018/7/13/repost-from-6rang-reparative-therapies-on-gays-and-lesbiansthrough-cruel-inhumane-and-humiliating-treatments-has-increased-in-iran. See www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706071/. See https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53cf9459e4b0a5929855f337/ t/57d92eb037c5812a4b8957a4/1473851143850/APTB+FINAL_corrected_December2015.pdf. See www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/indonesia-lgbtqi-conversion-therapy/10576900. See www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39777612. Submission by the Trevor Project. New Jersey Superior Court, Ferguson et al. v. JONAH et al. See www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43066082; https://theithacan.org/opinion/escaping-gayconversion-therapy-in-kenya/; and https://afroqueerpodcast.com/2019/11/21/season-two-episode-05/. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGwCJsaokSU; and https://newrepublic.com/article/141294/abominable-legacy-gay-conversion-therapy.