When the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Oct. 6 over Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy,” the justices weren’t just weighing a free speech case. They were weighing the safety and dignity of LGBTQ+ children.
The question at the heart of Chiles v. Colorado isn’t about silencing faith or policing beliefs. It’s about whether states have the right and the responsibility to regulate a practice that has been proven harmful to its victims.
States do have that responsibility. And they must carry it out.
“Conversion therapy,” whether rooted in religion or not, is not therapy. It is a discredited and dangerous attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Every major medical and mental health organization in the United States, including the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Medical Association, has rejected it as pseudoscience.
The consensus is unequivocal. There is no credible evidence that conversion therapy can change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. There is, however, abundant evidence of its harms.
A 2018 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry found that LGBTQ+ adults who underwent conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who had not. The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law reported that 42% of LGBTQ+ youth subjected to the scheme had attempted suicide in the previous year.
These are not abstract statistics. They are the reported cases of real children like Ryan Robertson, whose mother, Linda, testified to the high court about the anguish her son suffered after being pressured into therapy to change who he was. He died by suicide at age 20.
Colorado’s law, like similar statutes in more than 20 states, doesn’t criminalize religious beliefs nor ban religious counseling. But it does hold licensed mental health providers to professional, evidence-based standards of care.
Despite the chaos created by the new Trump administration and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior, evidence-based standards of care is the very foundation of science and medicine. Anything else is quackery and potentially deadly.
Colorado’s law prevents such frauds from inflicting practices that the medical community deems unsafe and can prove it. The law does not stop parents, pastors, or individuals from discussing faith, identity, or morality. It only restricts licensed therapists from offering treatments that are known to cause harm, just as states prohibit doctors from prescribing disproven or dangerous drugs.
The harms of conversion therapy extend far beyond the therapy room. Survivors report long-lasting trauma, anxiety, depression, and a fractured sense of self. Many describe losing trust in family, faith, and the possibility of having a rewarding and successful relationship. A 2020 study published in the “American Journal of Public Health” found that exposure to conversion efforts during adolescence tripled the risk of major depressive disorder in adulthood. These outcomes are not side effects. They are the direct consequences of telling a child that their core identity is broken and must be fixed.
The First Amendment does not grant professionals the right to harm patients in the name of free speech. As Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson told the high court, “Providers have a duty to act in their patients’ best interest and according to their professional standards. The First Amendment affords no exception.”
If the Supreme Court overturns these protections, it will not be expanding freedom. It will be licensing abuse.
A common mistake is to assume a given population is homogeneous; that is, all identical in attitudes and motivations. I suspect those who engage in homosexual behavior may actually be composed of two distinct groups: bisexuals exploring their “other side,” and endogenous homosexuals who were born homosexual. “Conversion therapy” may be helpful to the former while may not with the latter. It may even be harmful to the latter if forced when young.