South Africa: Apartheid Military Forced Gay Troops Into Sex-Change

Operations

by Ana Simo

AUGUST 25, 2000. South Africa's apartheid army forced white lesbian and gay

soldiers to undergo 'sex-change' operations in the 1970's and the 1980's,

and submitted many to chemical castration, electric shock, and other

unethical medical experiments. Although the exact number is not known,

former apartheid army surgeons estimate that as many as 900 forced 'sexual

reassignment' operations may have been performed between 1971 and 1989 at

military hospitals, as part of a top-secret program to root out

homosexuality from the service.

Army psychiatrists aided by chaplains aggressively ferreted out suspected

homosexuals from the armed forces, sending them discretely to military

psychiatric units, chiefly ward 22 of 1 Military Hospital at

Voortrekkerhoogte, near Pretoria. Those who could not be 'cured' with drugs,

aversion shock therapy, hormone treatment, and other radical 'psychiatric'

means were chemically castrated or given sex-change operations.

Although several cases of lesbian soldiers abused have been documented so

far-including one botched sex-change operation-most of the victims appear to

have been young, 16 to 24-year-old white males drafted into the apartheid

army. Between 1967 and 1991, all white males over the age of 16 were

conscripted in South Africa. The apartheid regime, which began in 1948,

officially ended in 1994.

Alleged Torturer Cozy in Canada

Details of the medical torture program were revealed in "The Aversion

Project", a recent 132-page study, and in a chilling investigative series

just published by The Daily Mail and Guardian. The South African newspaper

identified the head of the program as Colonel Aubrey Levin, former chief

psychiatrist at the Voortrekkerhoogte military hospital, who left for Canada

in the mid-1990's as the apartheid system crumbled.

Dr. Levin is now Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry

(Forensic Division) at the University of Calgary's Medical School. He is

also in private practice, as a member in good standing of the College of

Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta.

Dr. Levin admitted on July 28 to The Daily Mail and Guardian that he had

practiced 'aversion therapy' on young gay South African soldiers, not with

electric shocks, as his victims claim, but with an "electronic device" that

caused "a slight, very slight, discomfort in the arm." However, he

strenuously denied that gender reassignment operations were ever performed

by the apartheid army and said that no one was ever forced to submit to

treatment: "We did not keep human guinea pigs like Russian communists, we

only had patients who wanted to be cured and were there voluntarily."

Since that interview, Levin has retained Grant Stapon, a top Canadian media

lawyer, and is now threatening to sue the South African newspaper in a

Canadian court. Only one Canadian publication has so far picked up the

story-they have also been threatened with a lawsuit. The story has been

ignored by the wire services and by the usually avid U.S. media,

including-incredibly- its gay wing. (A translation of The Daily Mail and

Guardian article outing Levin was posted on July 31 on the home page of the

U.S.-owned French-language Gay.com site, and has since been relegated to

their archives.)

Some of the charges against Dr. Levin are not new.

The War Resister, a publication of the Committee of South African War

Resisters, first blew the whistle on him in January 1987, for his alleged

use of forced aversion shock therapy against gay conscripts.

Untouched by Charges of Abuse

Ten years later, in June 1997, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation

Commission named Levin for possible "gross human rights abuses" for the same

reason (no mention was then made of the 'sex-change' program). However, the

Commission apparently made no effort to serve him a subpoena. By then, Levin

was already in Canada. Levin could still be prosecuted in South Africa for

his alleged human rights abuses because he never applied the Commission for

amnesty, nor was granted it.

Dr. Levin is not the only apartheid-era military psychiatrist linked to

human rights abuses who continues to practice. A psychiatrist working under

him at Voortrekkerhoogte military hospital, who in the 1970's allegedly

helped chemically castrate a young gay conscript named Jean Erasmus, still

practices in Cape Town. A depressed Erasmus killed himself last year after

telling his story to an Amnesty International representative in Pretoria.

Erasmus' story is recorded in "The Aversion Project: Human rights abuses of

gays and lesbians in the South African Defence Force by health workers

during the apartheid era." The study was commissioned by the Medical

Research Council, the Health and Human Rights Project, the Centre for

Epidemiological Research in Southern Africa, the South African Medical

Research Council, the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality

(NCGLE), and the Gay and Lesbian Archives.

In the Archives collection there are two boxes of papers documenting the

1968 Immorality Amendment Bill. Item B106 is an eager letter from a loyal

member of the ruling, pro-apartheid National Party who claims to have

successfully 'treated' homosexuals and wants to be invited to address the

all-white Parliament on this subject. The letter is signed by Dr. Aubrey

Levin, "medical practitioner and psychiatrist in training."

Government Probe Asked

As more gruesome evidence continued to surface, the National Coalition for

Gay and Lesbian Equality (NCGLE) asked the government on August 14 to set up

a commission of inquiry to get to the bottom of the medical torture

allegations against lesbians and gay men by the apartheid army, including

the charges of illegal 'sex-change' operations. The call was supported by

the South African Council of Churches, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town,

the South African Catholic Bishops Conference, and Amnesty International.

The Coalition, which represents more than 74 lesbian, gay, transgender, and

bisexual organizations in South Africa, wants the commission of inquiry to

find out the names of all victims and all perpetrators of these atrocities,

as well as the number of deaths. It also wants compensation and follow-up

treatment for the survivors and their families.

"Many of the perpetrators of these acts may still be in the service of the

State, practicing medicine or in the service of the South African National

Defense Force. This is unacceptable," the Coalition said in a letter to the

South African Minister of Defense requesting the probe.

In a statement released on August 16, the Coalition criticized the South

African medical establishment for its inaction. Although information about

the aversion project had been available for some time, and some medical

military staff "at the time of the alleged abuses" had reported them, "the

medical establishment has never investigated any of these allegations," it

said.

The South African medical establishment's ethical lethargy may well be

self-serving: it has never been held fully accountable for its widespread

violations of human rights under apartheid. By mid-1997, when Dr. Levin was

named, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had only heard a measly 28

cases of medical doctors accused of helping the apartheid security forces.

"We believe that this is only the tip of the iceberg, and that there are

many hundreds of cases of violations that need to be investigated," Dr.

Leslie London, a member of the Health and Human Rights Project, told the

media at the time. These abuses were not isolated events involving a "few

bad apples," but "arose in a context in which the entire fabric of the

health sector was permeated by apartheid," he added.

The bad apple cart will be nastily overturned if South Africa's government

does the right thing and launches an investigation into the alleged anti-gay

atrocities. One can almost hear the deafening silence of the medical

establishments in two continents as it closes ranks.

A report detailing castration and electric shocks adds weight to calls for doctors to be held to account over abuses

By Chris McGreal in Johannesburg

The part-man, part-woman who still calls himself Harold is trying to gather the courage to finally fight back against South Africa's military. It was the army, after all, which abandoned him more than a decade ago, part way through "treatment" to turn him from a male to a female under a discredited policy of trying to "cure" homosexual conscripts.

"I now know that in one sense I was just unlucky. The army had whole gay battalions who they just shunted aside and let be. But if things went wrong and you ended up in the hands of the psychologists then it could get very bad. In my case it began with the electric shocks and only ended after they'd already given me breasts, and then the army said it had abandoned the whole policy," he said.

He is not alone. Thousands of other gays were subjected to electric shock therapy, hormone treatment and chemical castration through the 1970s and 80s, when national service was compulsory for white males and homosexuality was a crime.

Some lesbians were also given "cures".

An as-yet unpublished report, called the Aversion Project, commissioned by gay rights groups and South Africa's medical research council, details the extent of the abuses and is expected to form the basis of demands for corrective treatment, and demands that the doctors behind the "treatments" be held accountable by the medical authorities.

The attempts to "cure" homosexuals began after the creation of the infamous ward 22

Bboy wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2002 4:47 pm at the Voortrekkerhoogte military hospital

near Pretoria in 1969. The ward, which ostensibly catered for servicemen with psychological problems, was under the command of an army colonel and psychologist, Aubrey Levin.

Aversion therapy

Dr Levin treated genuinely disturbed patients, but was also keen to take in other soldiers to "cure". His focus was homosexuals and drug users. Commanding officers and chaplains were encouraged to refer "deviants" for "treatment".

At first Dr Levin was convinced he could make heterosexuals out of gay patients, using electroconvulsive aversion therapy. Michael Smith, now a 46-year-old marketing manager in Johannesburg, was sent to ward 22 after Dr Levin forced him to admit he was homosexual in front of his parents. He was then an 18-year-old conscript.

"It was the first time they realised I was homosexual and they were horrified. Dr Levin told them he had a therapy that would 'reorientate' me, so I agreed to the treatment," he said.

The treatment consisted of strapping electrodes to the upper arm with wires running to a dial calibrated from one to 10. Homosexual soldiers were shown pictures of a naked man and encouraged to fantasise, then the power was ratcheted up until the patient could take no more.

The subject was then shown an image of a naked woman.

"When you kind of reached the maximum point and then you'd say 'No, no, no, I couldn't stand it any more', then he would say: 'Now you must think about your girlfriend', and all that sort of off-the-wall statements," said Mr Smith.

"I was actually just completely freaked out and confused. It certainly didn't do much for my impulses of attraction for other boys."

Trudie Grobler, an intern psychologist on ward 22, saw a lesbian subjected to such severe shocks that her shoes flew off.

"It was traumatic. I could not believe her body could handle it," she said.

Dr Levin believed the same treatment could also cure "drug addicts", mostly men caught smoking marijuana. There were also those who simply did not want to serve in the apartheid military. They were tagged as "disturbed".

On arrival at ward 22, "patients" were stripped of their clothes and shoes and given brown pyjamas. The army said that would help to prevent escapes. Every new patient was put on Valium. The ward orderlies carried pistols.

Dr Levin also subjected his patients to narco-analysis or a "truth drug", involving the slow injection of a barbiturate before the questioning began. Dr Levin does not deny its use.

Hard labour

"Narco-analysis was used, I give you that, but it was used in very isolated cases and only to help treat post-traumatic stress. Narco-analysis was used to help get victims to talk about the trauma they suffered," he said.

But former patients say that gays and "drug addicts" were subjected to the treatment to see if they were really "cured". Drug users considered habitual addicts were sent to a hard-labour farm.

Dr Levin, who became chief psychiatrist for the whole South African military, eventually concluded that aversion therapy was a failure and abandoned it in favour of other methods.

One gay soldier, Jean Erasmus, was chemically castrated by Dr Levin at Bloemfontein psychiatric hospital in 1980.

Before he committed suicide last year, Erasmus recorded a tape detailing the broader abuse of homosexuals in the army, including how he was forced by his officers to participate in the gang rape of Angolan women, and how other gay soldiers were given hormone drugs.

"I am quite convinced that quite a few murders of gay people took place which we will never know of, and it was covered up. When people got trigger happy, gays were often the brunt of the bullet."

In practice, the army's treatment of gays was confused. Many found themselves in de facto "gay battalions", according to Mikki van Zyl, a researcher on the Aversion Project report.

"In Uppington, virtually the whole battalion was queer until some general decided this should be broken up. There was one in Grahamstown. There was another in Pretoria. For some of them, these were supportive environments," she said.

Some men joined the army specifically to get a sex change operation. But others were pressured into surgery by military psychologists after other methods failed. The army carried out as many as 50 sex change operations a year.

Lesbians were also offered surgery - one woman is among those left partially altered after the programme was shut down.

The Aversion Project report argues that the doctors concerned broke international law.

"Health workers in the [military] were expected to be loyal first to the state and its ideologies. It meant that some doctors flagrantly ignored terms from the Geneva convention and Tokyo declaration, and certainly showed no accountability to the national professional councils, nor best current practices. The stage was set for human rights abuses of patients under the care of such doctors."

Ms van Zyl says that while the army as an institution should be held accountable, Dr Levin has particular responsibility.

"He left a trail of experiments. He worked in environments where he had captive subjects and he abused them," she said.

Dr Levin emigrated to Canada at about the time he was warned by

Bboy wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2002 4:47 pm the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

in South Africa that he would be named as an abuser of human rights.

Speaking to the Guardian from Canada, where he works at a teaching hospital, he said he left South Africa only because of the high crime rate, and denied the accusations against him.

"Nobody was given electric shock treatment by me. What we practised was aversion therapy. We caused slight, very slight, pain in the arm by contracting the muscles, using an electronic device," he said.

"Nobody was held against his or her will.

Bboy wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2002 4:47 pm We did not keep human guinea pigs,

like Russian communists;

Bboy wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2002 4:47 pm we only had patients who wanted to be cured and were there voluntarily."

Copyright © Guardian Media Group PLC 2000

What Bboy and Antonia have written, I have already read with interest in the past here in the South African gay press, (Exit and the now the defunct Rush), as well as minor references in the national press. The coalition of gay organizations have called upon persons involved to come forward and claim compensation (which I believe the State is willing to pay if proven). Feedback so far has been scanty, except for the few persons both writers above have already mentioned.

THE TRUTH. What is fact and what is fiction? I personally cannot answer that. I do believe that in time, the whole TRUTH will come out. But even so, what difference will it make? It will just be HISTORY.

As an aside, I wish to relate my own personal experience.

I am a gay South African. During the old Apartheid regime, I was trained as a luitenant (veldkornet) in the medical corps (called by the other branches of the army as aspro or shithouse mechanics), a rank which I attained (with pride. And did I look bonny in my uniform, and did the older gays love picking up uniformed young “troepies” like myself). I was assigned to the 1st Field Ambulance Corps, stationed at Natal Command in Durban (opposite Gay Beach).

I used to “camp” (solicit sex) in public toilets in Durban. Was caught and imprisoned overnight on two occasion (and eventually nominally fined by the magistrate) for having inadvertantly solicited police vice squad members (after me first havng given them a blow job, which they, and I, obviously enjoyed).

When I applied for the rank of Captain, I was granted such, but when they investigated me for criminal records, found me to have such as mentioned above. I was neither castrated, sex changed or otherwise, but was asked to resign from the army, if not, to be dishonerably discharged. I obviously chose the former. I was bitter for months afterwards. I knew that I was better than my substitute, but felt discriminated against. In any event, in hindsight, I believe it to have been the best for me in the light of the changed political situation in South Africa.

Many years have passed, and I am now much older, but I do love to think back on the good old days when the gays (almost as a sport) would go to great lenghts to outwit the vice squad. On another occasion (after the army debacle) I was at a gay sauna in Durban. That evening the place was raided by the vice squad. I, together with the other occupants were arrested. The sheets were taken in for forensic evidence for sperm emissions. Whilst in detention, I was asked to submit a sample, and a small bottle was given me by my warder. I said to him “If you want a sample chum, you will have to wank me, because I will not be able to come otherwise” Blushing, he walked away with the bottle and without his sample. In any event the district surgeon was gay, who thwarted the whole event. The public prosecutor rejected the police attempt to prosecute us for lack of evidence.

Well, here it is a few years later and.... LOOK AT WHAT I JUST FOUND!

More Charges Against Psychiatrist Dr. Aubrey Levin AKA Dr. Shock

In the 1980s and 1990s Levin, then a colonel, was the chief psychiatrist at 1 Military Hospital's infamous Ward 22, where homosexual conscripts and soldiers were "treated" with aversion therapy.

(i-newswire) , August 4, 2010 - 21 counts of sexual assault have now been laid by authorities against a prominent Calgary psychiatrist, Dr. Aubrey Levin, accused of sexually assaulting a former patient.

According to media sources, 29 additional complainants have contacted police in the time since Levin’s arrest in March 2010. One of the several complainants has contacted the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) asking for help, saying he too was sexually assaulted by Levin.

CCHR has asked the Alberta

Bboy wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2002 4:47 pm College of Physicians and Surgeons

to explain how Dr. Aubrey Levin, who emigrated to Canada in the mid 90s, was allowed to become a

Bboy wrote: Sun Sep 15, 2002 4:47 pm Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry (Forensic Division) at the University of Calgary

’s Medical School, in light of the fact that in 1997 South Africa’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” named him for possible “gross human rights abuses” during Apartheid rule. The college has refused to respond to this vital question.

The forensic psychiatrist, who fled to Canada after the end of Apartheid rule, was originally arrested by police in Alberta on March 24 2010. He was charged with sexual assault after a 36-year-old former patient alleged he was sexually abused while being treated by the doctor.

It has been alleged, on good authority, that in the 1980s and 1990s Levin, then a colonel, was the chief psychiatrist at 1 Military Hospital's infamous Ward 22, where homosexual conscripts and soldiers were "treated" with aversion therapy. There have also been reports that involuntary sex changes, sometimes deliberately botched, were imposed on gays and lesbians. The process included chemical castration and electric shocks.

According to South African media sources, Levin's 'treatment' of homosexuals, both male and female, comprised attaching electrodes to the arms of his subjects. These were connected to a machine operated by a dial calibrated from 1 to 10. In the case of suspected gay men, the subjects were shown black and white pictures of naked men and encouraged by Levin to fantasize about the pictures. They were then given increasingly painful shocks. This process was followed by showing the 'patients' Playboy centerfolds, which would be described in glowing terms by the psychiatrist, with no shocks administered. The same process, using pictures of women, counter posed with naked men, was employed with those women deemed to have lesbian tendencies.

Brian Beaumont, spokesperson for the British Columbia chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, said “Psychiatric sexual assault is a very common occurrence over the world, but all too often the perpetrator is only slapped on the wrist by being given a fine or suspension from practice for these criminal activities”. “There has been ample evidence that women are at very great risk of being sexually assaulted while in a psychiatrist's office”. “Now even men are at risk”, he concluded.

If you know anyone, including a child, who has been abused or harmed by a psychiatrist call The Citizens Commission on Human Rights at 1-800-670-2247. Complete confidentiality assured.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was established by the Church of Scientology to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

http://www.i-newswire.com/more-charges- ... rist/52188

Nice to see a post by Bboy.