8 Shockingly Unethical Experiments That Actually Happened

7. The Aversion Project

The 70s and 80s were a dark time for the LGBT community and, in apartheid South Africa, a shocking number of gay and lesbian soldiers were forced to undergo aversion therapy and gender reassignment surgery as part of a secret operation to root out homosexuality in the armed forces.

Suspected homosexuals were exposed by army psychiatrists, and sent to military psychiatric units, chiefly ward 22 of 1 Military Hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte where they were to undergo "aversion". This included shock therapy, in which they were forced to view gay pornography and shocked with increasing intensity in order to create a negative association and chemical castration.

If none of this "worked", then they were forced to undergo a sex change operation. As many as 900 homosexual males, mostly 16–24 years old, were surgically turned into women and given birth certificates to fit their modified anatomy.