The Aversion Project (1971-1989)
YouTubeThe Aversion Project was led by Aubrey Levin, who wanted to “cure” gay people in South Africa.
From 1948 to the early 1990s, South Africa operated under apartheid, a system of enforced racial segregation under the rule of an authoritarian government. At this point in time, a wide number of psychiatrists were also still of the opinion that homosexuality was a mental illness. Meanwhile, the American Psychiatric Association didn’t remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1973.
In America, this change snuffed out many psychiatrists’ interest in pursuing potential “treatments” for homosexuality. In South Africa, however, and particularly in the South African Defense Force, this was not the case.
According to a study by forensic psychiatrist Robert M. Kaplan, as militarization of South Africa’s white population escalated following the establishment of universal conscription in 1967, doctors and chaplains also began to regularly screen conscript ranks for gay people.
Any “identified” homosexuals were then subjected to a series of cruel experiments in a psychiatric ward in Pretoria. First, they were shown black and white photos of naked men while an electric shock was administered to them. Then, they were shown Playboy centerfolds. As Kaplan wrote, “The shock was so intense that in one case the subject’s shoes flew off.”
This psychiatric ward, headed by Aubrey Levin, also targeted drug addicts, conscientious objectors, the mentally ill, and political dissidents. He subjected these people to brutal shock therapy as well. Some of them were also punished with forced labor and chemical castration.
Many subjects killed themselves during and after the program.
And between 1969 and 1987, around 900 men and women were forced to undergo sex reassignment surgeries in military hospitals to “cure” them of their homosexuality. Those who survived were given new identities, discharged from military service, and told not to contact their loved ones. Sometimes, these test subjects were discharged before their surgeries had been completed, thus requiring additional procedures later on.
Levin was eventually named by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for his “gross human rights abuses.” Shockingly, this didn’t stop him from being able to move to Canada and to get a new job at the University of Calgary’s Medical School. There, he was later found guilty of molesting three court-appointed patients in 2013. For this, he received five years in prison, but was granted an early release in 2016.
After learning about these disturbing psychology experiments, read about the six most evil human experiments ever perpetrated by the U.S. government. Then, learn about the seven most terrifying scientific experiments ever performed in history.
