U.S. Supreme Court
Expert challenges prevailing analysis that SCOTUS will uphold trans healthcare ban
NCLR’s Shannon Minter more optimistic about U.S. v. Skrmetti
Less than a week after oral arguments were concluded in the landmark U.S. v. Skrmetti case, most pundits and legal experts seem to agree the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to uphold Tennessee’s law banning gender affirming health treatments for minors.
Shannon Minter, however, is not convinced.
In fact, as the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights told the Blade during an interview on Tuesday, “neither I nor the lawyers I know who are following and have litigated these cases” buy into the “negative” analysis published by many mainstream press outlets after the parties addressed the justices at One First Street on Dec. 4.
“I was totally surprised,” Minter said, and “really disappointed,” in coverage of the oral arguments that appeared in places like SCOTUSblog, where Amy Howe wrote that “nearly all of the court’s conservative majority expressed skepticism about a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender teenagers.”
The article was hardly an outlier. The New York Times reported it was “probable” that “there were at least five votes for rejecting the equal protection challenge to the law,” while Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern explained that Skrmetti will determine whether “constitutional limits on sex discrimination” can “survive this 6-3 conservative supermajority” and then concluded that “after two and a half hours of arguments, it appears the answer will be no.”
Conservative justices not in lockstep
From the interpretation of key exchanges between the justices and the parties last week to assessments of whether and to what extent certain conservatives might be inclined to join their liberal colleagues in this case and expectations for how precedent-setting decisions could shape its outcome, Minter offered a variety of reasons for why he is skeptical of the reasoning that undergirds much of the mainstream opinion on where the court is likely to land when a decision in Skrmetti is published, as expected, in June 2025.
Asked why his take on Wednesday’s oral arguments diverged so significantly from those offered by many reporters and legal analysts, Minter suggested that conservative Justice Samuel Alito might be responsible to some extent for “the negative perception [reflected] in the mainstream press” because he was “unremittingly negative and spoke a lot” and “took up most of the space.”
Last week aside, given his well established, deeply conservative ideological bent and record of skepticism toward LGBTQ rights, one might reasonably expect Alito to issue a decision that would uphold Tennessee’s trans healthcare ban. Likewise with respect to Justice Clarence Thomas who, compared to Alito, is hardly less conservative or more solicitous of opportunities to expand the LGBTQ community’s rights and freedoms.
Minter characterized both justices’ engagement with the Skrmetti litigants as “negative,” adding that another conservative on the bench, Brett Kavanaugh, was occasionally prickly but otherwise seemed eager to understand the nuances of the case and address questions like whether or how “a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, here” might “predetermine what we would have to do in a sports case.”
By contrast, it is difficult to predict where the other conservatives on the high court might land on legal questions central to the case. Neil Gorsuch, for instance, was difficult to read even before he declined to ask a single question or otherwise speak when the court heard oral arguments last week.
Minter noted that “less than four years ago when the court issued its decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, it was Gorsuch whose majority opinion, cosigned by the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and their liberal colleagues, recognized “that discrimination because a person is transgender is inherently based on sex, that it is a type of sex discrimination.”
“So the issue here” in the Skrmetti case “looks awfully similar,” Minter said, because the core legal questions concern the constitutionality of “a statute that targets transgender people” and confronts the court with the question of “whether or not [the law] discriminates based on sex.”
Acknowledging that one should not read too deeply into Gorsuch’s decision to play his hand “extremely close to the vest” during oral arguments, Minter said, “I would like to think that if he had a significant change of view” since authoring the court’s landmark opinion on anti-trans discrimination in 2020, the justice would have “wanted to ask some questions to explore that.”
For these reasons, “just from the very outset,” one might reasonably expect or at least “be hopeful that Justice Gorsuch will continue to [treat] these issues the same way that he did in Bostock,” Minter said.
He added that Roberts, likewise, was careful last week not to indicate which direction he was leaning and instead asked both parties to address concise but challenging questions. While Minter conceded that “It’s hard to draw any definitive conclusion,” he said the chief justice’s performance offered little reason to suspect that he has “shifted his fundamental understanding of these issues from one case to another.”
In a more “encouraging” showing last week, the court’s sixth conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, appeared to be “taking these issues very seriously” and “very genuinely grappling with whether or not this is a sex based law, and even with whether discrimination against transgender people, which is considered in its own right, [should] be subject to some sort of heightened scrutiny,” Minter said.
Another major reason for optimism, Minter said, was the “very belabored” discussion of Bostock on Wednesday that was kicked off by the court’s interest in revisiting recent caselaw and the petitioners’ masterful application of relevant precedent to legal questions at issue in Skrmetti.
Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden-Harris administration’s U.S. solicitor general who represents the federal government and argues alongside the petitioners, did “such a beautiful job of saying that the analysis of Bostock itself was not new,” but rather “drew upon preexisting equal protection case law,” Minter said.
Importantly, he said Prelogar was careful to delineate how both the statutory proscriptions against workplace discrimination ordained by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the rights guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment “rely on something called but-for causation, where all you have to show is that sex, in this case, was a but-for cause of the discrimination — meaning it doesn’t have to be the only cause; there can be other factors at play, but as long as it is a cause, it’s discrimination.”
“The reason Bostock was a surprise is just that, sadly, we’re so accustomed to the law not being applied equally or fairly to transgender people,” said Minter, who credited Gorsuch for applying “the law and the preexisting analysis honestly and fairly to transgender people” and deciding, “correctly,” that “there’s just no way to apply this framework that we’ve always applied and not come to the conclusion that this is sex discrimination.”
After the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned decades-old abortion protections that were first established with Roe v. Wade in 1973, critics argued the conservative justices had cavalierly abandoned the principle of stare decisis, which holds that courts should abide or defer to previous precedent-setting decisions, where possible, especially in landmark decisions that govern how people live their lives.
Asked whether the Supreme Court might be less inclined to overturn decisions like Bostock that were issued more recently and authored by the justices who currently serve on the bench, Minter said “absolutely,” adding that it would be “extraordinary for them to not follow the analysis and reasoning in a decision they decided so recently.”
The stare decisis issue provides more reason for optimism about Skrmetti, Minter said. Overturning important precedent is “unsettling to the stability of the law and to the status and stature of the court,” and “it helps that Bostock was a 6-3 decision” rather than a narrower, more contentious case settled by a 5-4 majority.
The future of gender-affirming care
The path by which U.S. v. Skrmetti reached the highest court in the land is a case study of the devastating consequences, the second and third-order effects, of scapegoating a vulnerable community with a moral panic that is allowed to fester thanks to fear and bigotry.
After several years in which state legislatures collectively introduced hundreds of bills targeting the rights of trans young people and their families, including access to healthcare, the Movement Advancement Project reports that 37 percent of transgender youth (ages 13-17) now live in places that legally prohibit them from accessing best practice medication and surgical care, with dozens of states enforcing these bans.
Among them, of course, is Tennessee, where a complaint was filed last year and fast-tracked through the federal courts such that now, justices on the Supreme Court are debating whether unelected judges or democratically elected lawmakers should adjudicate complex questions that advocates (for queer and trans communities, for civil liberties, for healthcare providers) believe are best addressed by patients and families or caregivers in close coordination with trained specialists who operate under evidence-based guidelines for clinical practice.
Apart from litigation before the high court, another development that signals the appetite and the political will for bringing anti-trans policies and politics from statehouses to the national stage was the massive spend on anti-trans advertising to support Trump and other Republican campaigns during the 2024 election cycle, which Minter noted was “very painful and distressing” for trans people and their families.
After Nov. 5, debates about whether and the extent to which the GOP’s anti-trans messaging strategy may have delivered electoral victories for the president-elect, or for the congressional Republicans who maintained control of the U.S. House and reclaimed their majority in the U.S. Senate, have given way to concerns about the escalation of transphobic hate speech and the legislative and legal attacks against the community that began to ramp up well before the incoming Trump-Vance administration will be seated with the 119th Congress next month.
At this juncture, Minter said that trans young people and their families must wait to see not only how the Supreme Court decides U.S. v. Skrmetti and what the corresponding implications might be in terms of their access to healthcare, but also whether and how and how aggressively the attacks against them will take shape in January and beyond.
In the meantime, “there are some basic things people can do to protect themselves,” Minter said. For example, “this would be a good time to get your identity documents updated, if you haven’t done that yet. It’s a good time to make sure your prescriptions are current. if you live in a state that has banned trans healthcare for minors and you’re the parent of a transit child, you know, it’s good to explore out of state resources. It would be a good thing for transgender people to go ahead now and get copies of their medical records, or at least make sure you know how you can quickly do so in case you do need to make any adjustments to how you’re obtaining the care, if you need to find a new provider or explore out of state resources, depending on what may happen in your state.”
He added, “Now, if there’s some sort of national action,” like a federal ban on access to transgender medicine for minors, “then, of course, it’s not necessarily going to matter where you live, or what state you live in” but “NCLR and other legal groups are prepared to immediately challenge” any such action on the national level.
Here again, Minter, a transgender litigator who came out in his 30s and who throughout his career has argued highly consequential cases, with some yielding major advancements in LGBTQ civil rights, is optimistic. “The post election polling has shown that the public would not be supportive of that action,” he said, because Americans “would far prefer the federal government, the president, and Congress focus on issues that matter broadly to people, especially the economy.”
Earlier, when discussing an exchange between Barrett and the parties, which concerned the justice’s questions about America’s history of de jure (official, lawful) anti-trans discrimination, Minter remarked that”It’s a good thing” ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, who represents the plaintiffs alongside Prelogar, was there “to explain to the court that, yes, there certainly has been a long history of governmental discrimination against transgender people.”
Ticking through some examples Strangio had shared with the court, Minter noted American officials’ enforcement of bans on military service, bans on government employment, bans on marriage, bathroom bans, gendered dress codes based on birth sex, and policies under which trans parents or guardians were forced to forfeit custody of their children or dependents.
Barrett’s pursuit of this line of questioning, Minter said, was an optimistic sign. And perhaps there is even reason for hope that a conservative Christian Trump-appointed jurist’s interest in the country’s record of anti-trans discrimination could carry implications beyond how she decides the tremendously consequential case that is now before the court.
Either way, Barrett — along with the other justices and their clerks and the courtroom staff, together with attorneys, spectators, journalists, and other observers who were lucky enough to score a spot to see the action live from One First Street (or, at least, were able to tune in remotely) — saw Strangio make his case on Wednesday, becoming the first out transgender lawyer ever to argue before the high court.
U.S. Supreme Court
Colo. activists condemn SCOTUS conversion therapy ruling
8-1 decision could have sweeping implications
The Supreme Court ruled in Chiles v. Salazar that a Colorado law banning conversion therapy is unconstitutional, striking down the state’s 2019 statute and potentially impacting similar laws across the country. Religious advocates have hailed Tuesday’s decision as a victory for the First Amendment and evangelical Christians, while LGBTQ activists warn it could lead to increased harm for LGBTQ youth.
The conservative majority, joined by two progressive members of the court, sided 8–1 with Kaley Chiles on March 31 in what some critics are calling a landmark ruling for religious zealots, placing the teachings of the Bible above established medical consensus. Chiles, a Christian therapist who practices what she describes as “faith-based talk therapy for children,” challenged Colorado’s House Bill 19-1129, a law prohibiting licensed professionals from engaging minors in efforts to change their sexual orientation or gender identity through conversion therapy. She successfully argued that she and her clients have a constitutional religious right to choose the type of therapy they seek, effectively nullifying the Colorado law banning conversion therapy.
When the court heard oral arguments in October 2025, early questions indicated that the justices were likely to rule against the state in a matter involving LGBTQ rights, making this the fourth major LGBTQ rights case to come from Colorado since 1996.
In 1996, the Supreme Court overruled state initiative Amendment 2 in Romer v. Evans, which tried, but ultimately failed to restrict rules on gay people’s protected status in Colorado. Then in 2018, SCOTUS presided over Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, when a Lakewood baker refused to make a cake for a gay client, which the state argued violated it’s civil rights commission order, but the court sided with the baker, ruling the commission had violated his Christian beliefs. In 2023 the court ruled in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis that a Denver-based web designer is legally allowed to refuse to make wedding websites for same-sex couples, and successfully arguing she was constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.
Chiles, who practices in Colorado Springs, combines traditional psychological approaches — including cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, and humanistic therapies — with Christian beliefs. She argued that the law violated her First Amendment rights by restricting her ability to practice therapy aligned with her religious values, as well as limiting the rights of clients seeking that form of care.
Conversion therapy, widely discredited by major medical and psychological associations, is defined as practices that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Under Colorado law, providers found in violation could face fines up to $5,000, suspension, or loss of licensure.
Lower courts — including a district court and the 10th Circuit — previously upheld the law, finding it regulated professional conduct rather than speech and therefore required only minimal constitutional scrutiny. However, the Supreme Court, with three Trump-appointed justices, determined that the lower courts failed to apply “sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny,” raising concerns about violations of both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The ruling sends the case back to a lower court for further review.
The decision reflects a broader trend in recent years, with the current court — often referred to as the Roberts Court — more frequently siding with religious liberty claims, particularly those involving Christian plaintiffs.
To better understand the implications of the ruling, the Washington Blade spoke with Colorado-based LGBTQ advocacy organization Rocky Mountain Equality, which has spent decades organizing, educating, and providing services across the state.
Founded in 1994 as Boulder Pride, the organization has since expanded into a statewide force addressing LGBTQ issues, including healthcare, housing, and youth services. Now operating as Rocky Mountain Equality, the group saw a 62 percent increase in 2024 operating revenue, growing to more than $3.765 million while running the Equality Center of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder.
Mardi Moore, the chief executive officer of Rocky Mountain Equality, sat down with the Blade to discuss the ruling and its impact on the broader LGBTQ community, calling it both expected and deeply concerning.
“When the ruling came out today, I think we all knew it wasn’t going to be a winning battle after hearing arguments, but the 8-1 decision made me sad, and honestly, it’s turning into anger,” Moore told the Blade on Tuesday morning. “This is a really sad day — not just for LGBTQ kids, but for all kids in Colorado.”
Moore explained that the law passed with support from Colorado lawmakers and felt like progress toward making the state safer for LGBTQ residents.
While oral arguments were being heard in October, the Blade spoke to a group of conversion therapy survivors who came to the nation’s capital to protest the ban’s removal and support one another. Their stories detailed the emotional and physical toll of conversion therapy.
“We all know the horror stories, and we know conversion therapy is pseudoscience,” she continued. “About a decade ago, Colorado passed a bill — under the leadership of then-Rep. Daniel Ramos — that banned conversion therapy with religious exceptions, which was a huge step forward.”
That step forward now feels like a step back, Moore suggested. While the ruling currently applies to Colorado, she warned it could embolden similar legal challenges nationwide.
“In our initial reading, this ruling only impacts Colorado and isn’t a broader issue for other states. But that doesn’t mean people who oppose LGBTQ rights won’t start fighting state by state,” Moore said. She pointed to the state’s history, including the fight against Amendment 2. “Here in Colorado, we’re used to these battles — we fought Amendment 2, and we’re still fighting now. There are two ballot measures this November: one targeting gender-affirming care for minors, and another banning trans youth from sports at all levels.”
These ballot measures, Moore explained, represent another attempt to restrict trans youth. One would limit gender-affirming surgeries for minors — procedures that research shows are extremely rare — while another would restrict sports participation based on sex assigned at birth.
“These efforts are trying to wipe trans kids off the map. This ruling is sickening — the religious right is still very active, and people who think voting doesn’t matter need to understand that presidents shape Supreme Courts.”
Moore emphasized that while national advocacy is critical, the fight increasingly comes down to local organizing and direct support.
“Here at Rocky Mountain Equality, we advocate for the community, train providers, and support people who have gone through conversion therapy. We have a strong youth program and will continue supporting young people in every way we can.”
“Colorado may seem progressive, but it’s still a purple state,” she added. “Messaging that works in Denver doesn’t always reach families who might send their kids to conversion therapy.”
The timing of the ruling — released on Trans Day of Visibility — also drew criticism.
“Releasing this decision on Trans Day of Visibility feels calculated. It takes a day meant for joy and turns it into another setback,” Moore said.
When asked about next steps, Moore pointed to state-apponited officials who support LGBTQ rights are likely reviewing options.
“I don’t have specifics yet on organized legal responses, but our attorney general, Phil Weiser, argued this case,” she said. “I imagine his office is reviewing every possible option right now.”
Despite the opinion dropping so recently, the emotional toll is already being felt.
“I texted a colleague this morning who went through conversion therapy — it was a sad emoji kind of day,” she said, also referencing a similiar feeling to the one she has now the case of Alana Chen, a University of Colorado Boulder student who died by suicide after experiencing conversion therapy.
“Her story devastated so many, including her mother,” she shared, adding that despite her death “is still advocating for young people” in the battle over conversion therapy — one that feels like it is getting worse with each ruling, with no end in sight.
“I think the real battle started this morning at kitchen tables. There are parents telling their kids, ‘I told you being queer was wrong — the Supreme Court says so,’” Moore said. “Those are the conversations we don’t hear, but they’re happening.”
Rocky Mountain Equality says it will continue focusing on direct support, specifically in rural communities which will face a particularly difficult time as LGBTQ rights become restricted.
“When people reach out to us from rural communities, we help connect them with affirming providers — locally if possible, or in places like Boulder County. We also help with financial support so they can access care. This work is about meeting people where they are,” she explained. “We’re working with organizations across the state, including in more conservative areas like Mesa County. The environments are very different, but we collaborate to share resources and support each other. Leading an organization right now is incredibly tough work.”
The organization is also mobilizing politically ahead of the ballot measures, using the anger from this case as fuel for the long hual to getting LGBTQ rights protected.
“Just last night, we had over 100 people at a kickoff event in Boulder for our campaign to defeat these ballot measures. People signed up to volunteer, donate, and write letters. We’re going to fight to make sure Colorado doesn’t become a ‘hate state’ again,” she said.
Moore also explained that as Colorado has become a leading destination for affirming healthcare and LGBTQ rights, people from more conservative neighboring states are seeking care there. She added that if the Centennial State can provide access to specialized care that has been politicized elsewhere, it should work to protect those services.
“People are coming to Colorado from surrounding states for gender-affirming care, abortion access, and support. We’re not going to let a small group of hateful voices take that away.”
She called on allies to take action, regardless of how small or meaningless it might seem at first.
“People can help by having conversations in their own communities about the value of every person. They can connect others with resources and support systems,” she said. “And for Colorado specifically, they can donate, share our work, and stand in solidarity.”
Moore drew parallels from past crises the LGBTQ community has had faced, yet many of the LGBTQ people she faught with in the seemingly impossible times of the past are still here and still fighting, emphasizing the community’s resilience..
“I was telling my staff — I’m an old dyke, and I remember the fight during the AIDS crisis. We were trying to make sure people were fed, cared for, and treated, all while our rights were under attack. We lost many lives, but we made it through — and we will again,” she recalled.
“They think if they attack us from every direction, they can erase us, but they’ve only made us stronger. We will continue supporting LGBTQ youth and all children who deserve protection from unregulated, harmful practices like conversion therapy.”
Other LGBTQ advocates also spoke out about the ruling’s impact.
Carl Charles, a member of the Elayne Cassidy Nicholas Memorial Counsel for Trans and Nonbinary Rights at Lambda Legal, issued a statement following the court’s ruling, while touching on and his personal experience with conversion therapy.
“I know firsthand the long-lasting harms of conversion therapy, having been subjected to it when I was 15 years old. This practice did not change my sexual orientation or gender identity. Instead, it destroyed important relationships and created shame and fear that took time and effort to undo. For many survivors, it is a reverberating life-long harm,” he said as he shared his story to the world via a friend-of-the-court brief with the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network, detailing the harms of conversion therapy they experienced.
“I am fortunate to have been able to transcend the trauma of that experience, to celebrate my identity as a transgender man, and to nurture a loving relationship with my husband. But so many young people do not have the familial or community support to withstand the impact of this unethical practice. LGBTQ+ youth do not need to be changed. Rather, like all youth, they need to be supported and celebrated for the unique and important people they are becoming.”
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson issued a statement following announcement of the court’s verdict, condemning the homophobic ruling as thinly veiled intolerance as masquerading a religious right fight. Before the case was heard, the HRC submitted amicus brief detailing how the legislation in question was not religous in nature, but is regulatory speech restriction that helping LGBTQ Americans.
“The court has weaponized free-speech in order to prioritize anti-LGBTQ+ bias over the safety, health and wellbeing of children,” her statement reads. “So-called ‘conversion therapy’ is pseudoscience, not real therapy. It has been condemned by every mainstream medical and mental health association and harms families, traumatizes children, and robs people of their faith communities. It is cruel and should never be offered under the guise of legitimate mental healthcare. To undermine protections that keep kids and families safe from these abusive practices is shocking — and our children deserve better.”
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court rules against Colo. law banning conversion therapy for minors
8-1 decision could have sweeping impact
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a Colorado law that bans so-called conversion therapy for minors.
The justices last October heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar. Today they ruled 8-1 in favor of Kaley Chiles, a Christian therapist who challenged the 2019 law.
In the case, which was heard by the justices in October 2025, Chiles successfully argued to the court that the law restricting this type of therapy was unconstitutional, leading to it being struck down.
The Supreme Court ultimately found that lower state and federal courts has “erred by failing to apply sufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny,” ultimately reversing the widely discredited “medical” treatment that has support by a very narrow margin of mental health specialists — specifically religious and socially conservative ones. This is despite the fact that Colorado state officials have never enforced the measure in practice, and included a religious exemption for people “engaged in the practice of religious ministry.” The now moot law carried fines of up to $5,000 for each violation and possible suspension or revocation of a counselor’s license.
In the ruling, the court said the law, that specifically applies to talk therapy “impermissibly” interferes with free speech rights of Americans, and despite it being “regard[ed] its policy as essential to public health and safety, but the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for himself and seven other justices from across the ideological spectrum who overturned the low court’s ruling. He went on to add that the original ban “trains directly on the content of her speech and permits her to express some viewpoints but not others,” sending it back down to a lower court.
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, which included an in depth summary of her departure from the other eight justices, explaining her fears about the verdict — and its eventual chilling effect on legislation that could attempts to restrict regulatory speech for religious attitudes— despite that these regulations are often made as a direct creation of years of essentially unanimous research, and are vetted though regulatory boards for specific jobs.
“This decision might make speech-only therapies and other medical treatments involving practitioner speech effectively unregulatable,” Jackson wrote on page 32 of the 35-page opinion issued by court in response to her opposing eight members comments on the bench.
Since the ruling late Tuesday morning, a slew of LGBTQ advocacy groups, as well as groups promoting LGBTQ discrimination, have issued statements on the direct impact this will have across the country for LGBTQ people.
Democratic Senator, running for reelection in Colorado, John Hickenlooper issued a condemnation of the practice on his X account. “Conversion therapy is cruel and inhumane, plain and simple. This SCOTUS decision is dangerous for LGBTQ+ Americans,” Our LGBTQ+ community deserves safety, acceptance, and love. We won’t ever let up in our fight for a better nation.”
Conversion therapy is cruel and inhumane, plain and simple. This SCOTUS decision is dangerous for LGBTQ+ Americans.,” the former governor said on the platform. “Our LGBTQ+ community deserves safety, acceptance, and love. We won’t ever let up in our fight for a better nation.”
Polly Crozier, director of family advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), provided a statement to the Washington Blade on the court’s decision.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling limited Colorado’s statute that preemptively shielded minors from conversion therapy, but it leaves open avenues for states to protect families from harmful, unscrupulous, and misleading practices that divide parents from their children and put LGBTQ+ youth at risk,” Crozier wrote, pointing to the overwhelming evidence on conversion therapy that argues this type of regulatory legislation is helping those suffering rather than harming. “The evidence is clear that conversion practices lead to increased anxiety, depression, and suicidality. This is a dangerous practice that has been condemned by every major medical association in the country. Today’s decision does not change the science, and it does not change the fact that conversion therapists who harm patients will still face legal consequences, and that family advocates, mental health practitioners, and all of us who care about the wellbeing of youth will continue working to shield LGBTQ+ young people and their families from this dangerous practice.”
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson, who leads the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, also provided a statement, calling the courts choice a “reckless decision.” The statement also points out how their own data (from the group’s philanthropic arm of the organization) was cited in Brown Jackson’s dissent in the amicus brief.
“The court has weaponized free-speech in order to prioritize anti-LGBTQ+ bias over the safety, health and wellbeing of children,” her statement reads. “So-called ‘conversion therapy’ is pseudoscience, not real therapy. It has been condemned by every mainstream medical and mental health association and harms families, traumatizes children, and robs people of their faith communities. It is cruel and should never be offered under the guise of legitimate mental healthcare. To undermine protections that keep kids and families safe from these abusive practices is shocking — and our children deserve better.”
Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit, tax-exempt Christian ministry that uses litigation to promote evangelical Christian values and limit LGBTQ protections, which was designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was also cited in the court’s amicus brief, but in support of overturning the law.
“The U.S. Supreme Court’s resounding decision in Chiles v. Salazar is a major victory for the integrity of the counseling profession,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Council said today. “This ruling ensures the government cannot strip the First Amendment away from licensed counselors and dictate a state-mandated ideology between counselor and client. Talk therapy is speech, and the government has no authority to restrict that speech to just one viewpoint. Counseling bans can now be struck down nationwide so that people can get the counseling they need.”
GLAAD, one of the nation’s oldest non-profit organizations focused on LGBTQ advocacy and cultural change issued a statement pon the verdict, emphasizing what multiple advocate groups have said — this decision will impact an already vulnerable youth population at an elevated high risk.
“The court once again prioritized malice over best practice medicine,” Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD said in a statement. “In the face of this harmful decision, we need to amplify the voices of survivors of this dangerous and disproven practice, and continue to hold anyone who peddles in this junk science liable.”
Truth Wins Out, an organization that works towards “advancing liberty and democracy through protecting the rights of LGBTQ people and other minorities” called out the court’s majority opinion for its potential for religious extremism and spread of disinformation.
“This ruling is a profound failure of both logic and moral responsibility that confuses ‘free speech’ with ‘false speech’,” Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out said in a comment. ” It opens the door for quackery to flourish and allows practitioners of a thoroughly debunked practice to continue harming LGBTQ youth under a thin veneer of legitimacy
Adrian Shanker, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy at Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden who also led LGBTQ policy at the agency spoke about the detrimental impact this will have on rules and regulations within the healthcare field that are supposed to be inherently secular by nature.
“No matter what the Supreme Court decided today, it is irrefutable that conversion therapy is harmful to the health and wellbeing of LGBTQI+ youth,” Shanker told the Blade, continuing the Trump-Vance administration’s choice to no longer formally support LGBTQ inclusive policy. “That’s why in the Biden administration we advanced policies to safeguard youth from this harmful practice.”
In an consistently updated document started in 2018 that cites the major harms risks conversion therapy poses to LGBTQ people, the Trevor Project, the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, included that the federal government’s own research proved the practice at best questionable and at worst deadly.
In a 2023 report entitled Moving Beyond Change Efforts: Evidence and Action to Support and Affirm LGBTQI+ Youth, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration stressed that “[sexual orientation and gender identity] change efforts are harmful practices that are never appropriate with LGBTQI+
youth, and efforts are needed to end these practices,” the summary of the fight against conversion therapy in the U.S. reads.
More than 20 states and D.C. banned the widely discredited practice for minors prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The Blade last October spoke to conversion therapy survivors after the justices heard oral arguments in the Chiles case.
U.S. Supreme Court
Competing rallies draw hundreds to Supreme Court
Activists, politicians gather during oral arguments over trans youth participation in sports
Hundreds of supporters and opponents of trans rights gathered outside of the United States Supreme Court during oral arguments for Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. on Tuesday. Two competing rallies were held next to each other, with politicians and opposing movement leaders at each.
“Trans rights are human rights!” proclaimed U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to the crowd of LGBTQ rights supporters. “I am here today because trans kids deserve more than to be debated on cable news. They deserve joy. They deserve support. They deserve to grow up knowing that their country has their back.”
“And I am here today because we have been down this hateful road before,” Markey continued. “We have seen time and time again what happens when the courts are asked to uphold discrimination. History eventually corrects those mistakes, but only after the real harm is done to human beings.”
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U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon spoke at the other podium set up a few feet away surrounded by signs, “Two Sexes. One Truth.” and “Reality Matters. Biology Matters.”
“In just four years, the Biden administration reversed decades of progress,” said McMahon. “twisting the law to urge that sex is not defined by objective biological reality, but by subjective notion of gender identity. We’ve seen the consequences of the Biden administration’s advocacy of transgender agendas.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, was introduced on the opposing podium during McMahon’s remarks.
“This court, whose building that we stand before this morning, did something quite remarkable six years ago.” Takano said. “It did the humanely decent thing, and legally correct thing. In the Bostock decision, the Supreme Court said that trans employees exist. It said that trans employees matter. It said that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination based on sex, and that discrimination based on sex includes discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. It recognizes that trans people have workplace rights and that their livelihoods cannot be denied to them, because of who they are as trans people.”
“Today, we ask this court to be consistent,” Takano continued. “If trans employees exist, surely trans teenagers exist. If trans teenagers exist, surely trans children exist. If trans employees have a right not to be discriminated against in the workplace, trans kids have a right to a free and equal education in school.”
Takano then turned and pointed his finger toward McMahon.
“Did you hear that, Secretary McMahon?” Takano addressed McMahon. “Trans kids have a right to a free and equal education! Restore the Office of Civil Rights! Did you hear me Secretary McMahon? You will not speak louder or speak over me or over these people.”
Both politicians continued their remarks from opposing podiums.
“I end with a message to trans youth who need to know that there are adults who reject the political weaponization of hate and bigotry,” Takano said. “To you, I say: you matter. You are not alone. Discrimination has no place in our schools. It has no place in our laws, and it has no place in America.”
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