Is the war on ‘conversion therapy’ over?

Recently, a landmark ruling on the constitutionality of so-called “conversion therapy” bans was handed down, sending shock waves throughout the country’s mental health community.

With the help of religious-liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, Colorado licensed counselor Kaley Chiles filed suit in federal court over a 2019 state law prohibiting licensed therapists from assisting clients under the age of eighteen from seeking voluntary counseling to change or reduce unwanted same-sex attractions or gender identity conflicts. After losing in the District and Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court took up her case last October.

The primary question the high court needed to decide was whether counseling should be considered medical conduct subject to professional regulation or speech protected by the First Amendment. Colorado’s statute allows a counselor to facilitate acceptance and support for a minor’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans (LGBT) identity exploration and development, but makes illegal the view that same-sex attractions or gender identity expressions are fluid and subject to change, claiming that such therapeutic efforts are ineffective, harmful, and fall outside of the so-called medical consensus. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch — joined by seven of the eight other justices — addressed this in his majority opinion: Colorado’s law regulates the content of her speech and goes further to prescribe what views she may and may not express. Her speech does not become “conduct” just because a government says so or because it may be described as a “treatment” or “therapeutic modality.” The First Amendment is no word game, and “the exercise of constitutional rights” cannot be circumscribed by mere labels.”

Even two of the Court’s liberal justices, Sotomayor and Kagan, joined the 8-1 majority opinion, criticizing the lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Jackson, for “reimagining” settled First Amendment law in what Justice Kagan described as a “textbook” viewpoint discrimination case. Jackson opined: “Conversion-therapy efforts have historically included aversive therapeutic modalities,” including “inducing nausea, vomiting, or paralysis in patients or subjecting them to severe electric shocks,” although they have “fallen out of fashion” in favor of talk therapy.

Bait and switch: Separating fact from fiction

In my 2019 book The War on Psychotherapy: When Sexual Politics, Gender Ideology, and Mental Health Collide, I document the movement behind laws to ban “conversion therapy,” the major players involved, their strategies, and the indoctrination tactics employed in the media, educational system, and healthcare industry.

Fourteen years ago, California passed the first “conversion therapy” ban into law, which strategically sought to restrict licensed practitioners from assisting minor clients in an effort to paint a sympathetic picture to an increasingly accepting public that LGBT-identified youth should not be forced to change their sexuality or gender identity. 

In late 2012, I assembled a group of about 10 colleagues. We were a small but determined group. Our goal was simple: make some noise and expose the fraud of the political lobby attempting to silence and eliminate our stories. We called ourselves Voice of the Voiceless and formed a 501(c)3 non-profit to advocate for our clients who were being marginalized.

We immediately started testifying in front of state legislatures. In a New Jersey Senate hearing committee hearing, trans Brielle Goldani claimed she was sent as a teenager — by her parents and Christian church — to an Ohio-based “conversion therapy torture camp” called “True Directions” that forced her into hetero-normative dating while subjecting her to electric shock therapy and intravenous fluids to induce nausea and vomiting at the sight of same-sex erotic material. She said: “Twice a week I was hooked up to electrodes on my hands ... I, a child, was shocked repeatedly by people who had my parent's permission to torture me. This is nothing more than legalized child abuse.”

However, this horror story turned out to be stranger than fiction, as our investigation revealed that “True Directions” existed only in the 1999 satire film “But I’m a Cheerleader” starring drag queen RuPaul; and as the battle to ban “conversion therapy” moved across the country, our coalition began to notice a familiar narrative with similar “therapy torture stories.”

Every January, state LGBT-rights coalitions would partner with well-funded national groups to employ an elaborate “Bait and Switch” strategy that would result in roughly two dozen blue states, and many liberal cities, passing very similar legislation. Just a few days prior to the opening of any particular state’s session, a news story would drop in a local paper and suddenly gain regional attention: “Teen sent to conversion therapy torture camp: Concerned lawmakers grapple with legislation to protect vulnerable youth.”

Following the interest story would emerge a courageous local lawmaker carrying the banner to protect young, vulnerable members of the LGBT community from being subjected to the “conversion therapy” torture. But behind the scenes were not a group of victims, but a well-rehearsed cadre of activists being funded by the sexual rights political lobby. The most infamous among them was Samuel Brinton.

Sam made a career out of telling his story to legislatures across the country, got paid to train executives in Corporations like Google on gender diversity and sexual equality, and even made it as far as the United Nations to testify about his therapist placing hot coals and ice on his hands, coupled with electrodes, as a technique to steer him away from being gay. The main problem for Sam, like many of his counterparts, was that he always seemed to suffer from temporary amnesia when asked for specific details about his so-called “conversion therapist,” the dates he underwent the therapy, and other key details like the state and location he received the treatment.

Much like Goldani, Brinton had a penchant for stealing sensational stories — but stories were not the only theft Sam was found guilty of.  After a short stint working for the Biden presidential administration, Brinton was arrested and later pleaded guilty to felony theft of women’s luggage in multiple airports across the country. We still can’t verify if Brinton’s counselor was licensed or if he received the “conversion therapy” as a minor – all facts that are relevant to this debate – and as my colleague Peter Sprigg, former senior fellow at the Family Research Council, once wrote — when it comes to the (conversion) “therapy debate: the truth matters.”

For several years, I lobbied federal and state lawmakers to expose the fraud our coalition uncovered. Most of the politicians I spoke with saw this issue as polarizing; the solution was too complex and too controversial. Our coalition worked with conservative policy organizations on the state and national level to try to find common ground with LGBT activist groups, naively thinking we could work together to end harmful aversive therapeutic practices while keeping talk therapy legal. 

One such example occurred in the state of Washington in 2015, where conservative lawmakers attempted to reach a compromise with “conversion therapy” ban advocates by prohibiting harmful aversion techniques such as electric-shock therapy while maintaining the freedom to practice talk therapy. But to the extreme left, this compromise did not go far enough and served to illustrate the sad reality that political activists were more interested in regulating conversations they disagreed with, rather than curbing child abuse.

Is the war on “conversion therapy” over?

While the Supreme Court’s ruling may be the beginning of the end, the war on “conversion therapy” seems far from over. It has yet to be determined how the remand of Colorado’s law, as well as the dozens of other state and city ordinances, will be nullified or rewritten in light of the high Court’s decision.

At the same time, activists such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Shannon Minter have recently made statements indicating their intention to pursue other legal and legislative avenues to restrict therapy. “I think the most important thing to understand about the decision is that it only takes one way of regulating conversion therapy off the table.” For example, California Senate Bill 934, if passed, would open the door for former clients who were harmed by “conversion therapy” to file lawsuits against their licensed practitioners.

While every client struggling with their sexual or gender identity should have the right to pursue counseling, we should never tolerate any type of coercive therapy, mistreatment, or abuse towards youth embracing an LGBT identity. Both sides of this debate must acknowledge that our values are diverse, and we are not all the same; and if we approach one another honestly and compassionately — whether it’s in the policy arena, therapeutic context, or in our families and communities — we can realize that respect and love for each other has room for disagreement.