Virginia
Va. court allows conversion therapy despite law banning it
Judge in June 30 ruling cited religious freedom.
In 2020, the state of Virginia had banned the practice of conversion therapy, but on Monday, a county judge ruled the ban violates the Virginia Constitution and Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowing the therapy to start once more.
The conversion therapy ban, which can be seen in Va. Code § 54.1-2409.5 and 18VAC115-20-130.14, was overturned on June 30 as a result of two Christian counselors who argued that their — and all Virginia parents’ — constitutional right to freedom of religion had been encroached upon when the state legislature passed the ban.
A Henrico County Circuit Court judge sided with John and Janet Raymond, two Christian counselors represented by the Founding Freedoms Law Center, a conservative organization founded in 2020 following Virginia’s conversion therapy ban. Virginia’s Office of the Attorney General entered a consent decree with FFLC, saying state officials will not discipline counselors who engage in talk conversion therapy.
Conversion therapy, as the legislation described it, is considered to be “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.” The ban’s reversal will now allow parents to subject their children to these practices to make them align better with their religion.
This decision comes despite advice and concern from many medical and pediatric organizations — including the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the American Counseling Association, to name a few — all of which denounce conversion therapy as dangerous and harmful to those subjected to it.
The American Medical Association, the largest and only national association that convenes more than 190 state and specialty medical societies, says that “these techniques are the assumption that any non-heterosexual, non-cisgender identities are mental disorders, and that sexual orientation and gender identity can and should be changed. This assumption is not based on medical and scientific evidence,” with attached data indicating people subjected to conversion therapy are more likely to develop “significant long-term harm” as a result of the therapy.
The AMA goes as far as to say that they outright “oppose the use of reparative or conversion therapy for sexual orientation or gender identity.”
FFLC has a clear goal of promoting — if not requiring — conservative ideology under the guise of religious freedom in the Virginia General Assembly. On their website, the FFLC argues that some progressive policies passed by the Assembly, like that of freedom from conversion therapy, are a violation of some Virginians’ “God-given foundational freedoms.”
The FFLC has argued that when conservative notions are not abided by in state law — especially when it involves “God’s design for male and female, the nuclear family, and parental rights” — that the law violates Virginians’ religious freedom.
A statement on the FFLC’s website calls gender dysphoria among children a “contagion” and upholds “faith-based insights” from counselors as equal — in the eyes of the law — to those who use medical-based insights. This, once again, is despite overwhelming medical evidence that indicates conversion therapy is harmful.
One study showed that 77 percent of those who received “sexual orientation change efforts,” or conversion therapy, experienced “significant harm.” This harm includes depression, anxiety, lowered self-esteem, and internalized homophobia. In addition, the study found that young LGBTQ adults with high levels of parental or caregiver rejection are “8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide,” with another study finding that “nearly 30 percent of individuals who underwent SOCE reported suicidal attempts.”
Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, a Democrat representing Fairfax, said that the overturning of the ban on religious merit disregards the entire concept of having professionally licensed counselors.
“I have no problem if somebody wants to go look at religious counseling from their priest or their minister, their rabbi, their imam — that’s perfectly fine,” Surovell told the Virginia Mercury. “When somebody goes to get therapy from somebody licensed by the commonwealth of Virginia, there’s a different set of rules applied. You can’t just say whatever you want because you have a license. That’s why we have professional standards, that’s why we have statutes.”
Virginia
Campaign urges Virginia High School League to reverse stance on trans athletes
Equality Arlington and other advocacy groups behind ‘Right 2 Play’ VA’ initiative
Virginia advocacy groups have launched a campaign that urges the Virginia High School League to once again allow student athletes to compete on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.
Equality Arlington on Sept. 16 published an article about the “Right 2 Play VA” campaign. Amy, a group representative, spoke about the initiative with the Washington Blade.
“The primary goal is to reverse the Virginia High School League’s discriminatory ban on allowing transgender girls to play on girls’ sports and replace it with a policy that is fair for all students.” they said.
The Virginia High School League in 2025 announced the policy, which reversed a previous position in support of transgender and nonbinary athletes. The 2025 policy coincided with President Donald Trump’s executive order — “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” — that threatened to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls.”
The Arlington Gender Identity Alliance, Equality Virginia, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia have also joined the “Right 2 Play VA” campaign.
“We had a policy in Virginia for 12 years that allowed transgender girls to play on girls’ sports teams, and we had not one instance — not one instance — that was brought forward demonstrating an unfair advantage or any type of safety concern,” said Amy.
Amy then discussed what they described are the benefits of trans youth playing sports.
“There are physical benefits. There are mental health benefits. There are community and social development benefits, and those are all well documented,” they said. “All kids should have the right to benefit from playing youth sports. We are talking about kids. We are talking about youth. We are not talking about Olympians. We are not talking about Division One college athletes. We are talking about kids in Virginia, and because the benefits of sports are so well documented, we think that every kid should have the ability to play sports.”
Virginia
Gay Va. couple hopeful voters will enshrine marriage equality in state constitution
Early voting has already begun in the state
A referendum on whether to enshrine marriage equality in Virginia’s constitutional amendment is on the ballot this year.
If voters approve Question 2, it will codify the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling in 2015 that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples across the country — gays and lesbians have been able to legally marry in Virginia since Oct. 6, 2014.
Ron Bookbinder and James Fisher are a married couple who live in Arlington.
They have been together for 38 years — Bookbinder and Fisher married in 2014.
“We think this is a critical vote to remove this discriminatory language from the constitution and to ensure that going forward, no matter what happens, the state of Virginia will ensure marriage equality,” Fisher told the Washington Blade. “It is it is really difficult and upsetting to think that our current state constitution would prohibit same-sex marriage, even though the federal government overrides that now. There’s no saying what may happen in the future.”
Bookbinder said it was important for him and Fisher to get married “to gain social equality.”
“I was surprised how good it felt, how important it was to begin to say, ‘my husband rather than my partner,'” Bookbinder said.
Bookbinder then explained why it feels good to be married.
“Is it a legal partner, a business partner, a tennis partner, you know, or a romantic partner? But when you say my husband James, everyone knows exactly what you mean and confers an equal status with everyone else who’s married, and we were both surprised at how good it felt and how equal it felt to suddenly be married and be able to state that you were married and discuss your husband rather than your partner, and I would hate to lose that,” he said.
Bookbinder and Fisher said they are hopeful that voters will approve the amendment, noting Virginia has become more progressive over the years.
“I think people have, with the Supreme Court decision, people have seen that a same-sex marriage is just a marriage,” stated Fisher. “It’s just two people who love each other, and I think more and more people have attended a same-sex marriage, someone in their family or a friend, and the experience of what this is, firsthand experience, is so important in shaping people’s opinions, and I think the period of time that we’ve had since the Obergefell decision has given a lot of voters that experience, which I think is really important and powerful.”
The couple also said the push to enshrine marriage equality in Virginia’s constitution is in response to the Trump-Vance administration.
“And I think due to President Trump doing all the horrible things he’s done to so many groups, including LGBTQ, especially trans people, that Virginians are kind of pushed to be even more progressive to protect those who need protection, which would include the LGBTQ community in terms of marriage equality, so I’m confident it will pass,” said Bookbinder.
Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, sent the Blade a statement about early voting on Question 2 that has already begun.
“With early voting now underway, our focus is making sure every Virginian knows Question 2 is on their ballot,” said Rahaman. “The outdated ban on same-sex marriage still in Virginia’s state constitution leaves a gap in protections for the thousands of same-sex couples that call this state home, but after 20 years we have the chance to fix it.”
Log onto www.mobilize.us/vaformarriage to find out more about the campaign in support of Question 2.
Virginia
Virginia Anti-Violence Project struggles to fill federal funding gaps
Group has lost 54 percent of funding since 2020
A loss of federal funding has threatened to adversely impact the Virginia Anti-Violence Project’s work in the state.
The group’s mission is to assist LGBTQ and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) victims of domestic, sexual, interpersonal, and state violence with direct support, education, and advocacy. The VAVP seeks to build a future where LGBTQ and BIPOC individuals can live freely without a sense for worry about violence.
“Virginia Anti-Violence Project helps to close the distance between services existing and LGBTQIA+ survivors actually being able to reach safety, stable housing, and support that they can trust,” VAVP Executive Director Ebony Clark told the Washington Blade on Tuesday. “Our mission is to provide direct services and advocacy to LGBTQ+ survivors across Virginia.”
Clark said obtaining state and federal funds has become increasingly difficult.
“One of the reasons that we can talk about is politics and how you know queer diverse, queer communities are targets when it comes to politics, and so that may be a reason why the funding is decreasing in in very niche areas, but overall, state funding, federal funding has been lost or significantly reduced when it comes to culturally specific marginalized populations,” Clark said. “The bigger picture is that funding that was purposed for diversity, equity, inclusion, marginalized populations, or you know culturally competent programming, those funds have been strategically reduced or eliminated on state and federal levels overall.”
Even more so with the current Trump-Vance administration.
Data shows federal funding for one “major federal victim-services funding stream in” Virginia has dropped 54 percent over the last six years: from $25.1 million in fiscal year 2020 to $11.6 million in fiscal year 2026.
Clark noted some federal funding has been denied due to VAVP’s DEI policies — it has had to “water down” their language. These cuts have forced VAVP to limit housing and economic support, which has resulted in fewer resources for its clients.
The organization has set up a goal for receiving between $250,000-$300,000 a year that would allow it to operate — and focus on client housing.
“Housing is fundamental to safety,” Clark told the Blade. “If you know leaving violence puts someone on the street or forces them back to the person harming them, that means the crisis isn’t over. So there needs to be other prevention strategies and reactive strategies in place to be able to prevent further violence from folks.”
VAVP has set up a link for anyone who is interested in making a donation. It is here.
The VAVP website is also accepting donations.
PHOTOS: Miss Gay Maryland America
Ahead of the midterms, Meta has paid at least 29 anti-LGBTQ accounts for their posts
Acclaimed U.S. Justice Dept. attorney William Corcoran dies at 83
JD Vance suggests James Talarico is gay during Texas rally
Hungarian lawmakers approve bill to remove anti-LGBTQ provisions from ‘child protection’ law
Solidarity beyond the parade: the actual cost of Pride
Essential queer horror classics for Halloween
Center for Black Equity honors leaders, activists at BE. Gala
In ‘The Lost Brontë,’ a complicated lie can lead to danger
