The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on Oct. 7 a free speech case involving a Colorado law that bans therapists from providing so-called conversion therapy to minors experiencing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria.
A therapist challenging the law argues that it violates her First Amendment rights. On the other side of the debate, Colorado contends that it has the right to regulate mental health treatments for minors that it deems harmful and ineffective. It is among more than 20 states with such bans.
Colorado’s Prohibit Conversion Therapy for a Minor law, passed in 2019, prohibits licensed therapists from trying to “change an individual’s sexual orientation, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
Therapists who violate the law could be stripped of their licenses and face fines of up to $5,000.
Colorado has stated that its regulation was enacted in response to “overwhelming” scientific evidence that conversion therapy for minors is unsafe and not effective in the long term.
A practitioner of such therapy told The Epoch Times that the therapist’s work focuses on mending psychological wounds and is not coercive or harmful.
Opponents of conversion therapy, including the American Medical Association, point to practices such as electric shock and negative feedback methods such as smelling salts or chemically induced nausea to create a psychological aversion to the unwanted behaviors or attractions.
However, according to licensed counselor Christopher Doyle of the Institute for Healthy Families, modern therapists avoid these methods and instead favor exploring clients’ attitudes on sexuality, trauma, self-perception, and relationships.
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