Conversion therapy survivors on edge as U.S. Supreme Court strikes down ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that banning conversion therapy for minors is a violation of free speech. But a man who underwent the practice himself says bans are about protecting vulnerable young people from serious — and sometimes fatal — harm.

In an 8-1 ruling on Tuesday, the U.S. top court struck down a 2019 Colorado law that prohibits licensed therapists from trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Known as conversion therapy, the practice has been widely debunked as ineffective, and in some cases, dangerous — something Denver’s Simon Kent Fung all too well. 

Not only has he experienced it himself, but he spent years researching its impacts for his podcast Dear Alana, which follows the case of a woman who died by suicide after years of conversion therapy. 

“The first line of defence with this law and laws like this is now eliminated,” Fung told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “There’s going to be real risks for people’s mental health, especially when they’re in a vulnerable state and looking for solutions.”

Free speech vs. medical regulation 

The case was brought forward by Kaley Chiles, a Christian counsellor who sued the state in 2022, arguing the ban violated her free speech rights under the U.S. constitution’s First Amendment.

A lower court upheld Colorado’s ban, agreeing with the state’s assertion that it has a right to regulate medical professions. But the Supreme Court Justices sided with Chiles.

“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same,” conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the ruling, wrote. 

“But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

Liberal ⁠Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenter, argued there’s nothing unconstitutional about Colorado’s law. 

“The Constitution does not pose a barrier to reasonable regulation of harmful medical treatments just because substandard care comes via speech instead of as scalpel,” she wrote.

Jackson warned the ruling will “open a dangerous can of worms” that “threatens to impair states’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.”

“It extends the Constitution into uncharted territory in an utterly irrational fashion,” she wrote. “And it ultimately risks grave harm to Americans’ health and well-being.”

The American Psychological Association cites multiple large-scale studies that show conversion therapy is not evidence-based, has little to no effect in changing someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and leads to higher rates of depression, substance abuse, lower income and education levels, self-harm and suicide.

Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez, who protested the ruling at a rally in New York City on Wednesday, said his experience in conversion therapy left him with a “decade navigating the depression and substance abuse it left behind.”

“My heart and my prayers are with the LGBTQ+ youth of Colorado who are now uniquely in harm’s way, and with the survivors for whom this news reopens old wounds,” he wrote in a statement.

Plaintiff defends her practice

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration supported Chiles, who was represented by the conservative religious legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom.

She said she “believes that people flourish when they live consistently ⁠with God’s design, including their biological sex.” 

Chiles argued that her patients come to her willingly and she only helps them to achieve their own stated goals, and that she never uses physical techniques like the shock therapy, which historically been connected to conversion therapy.

“I look forward to being able to help them when they choose the goal of growing comfortable with their bodies,” Chiles said in a statement. 

Fung says conversion therapy is harmful regardless of whether people participate willingly. He signed up voluntarily, as did Alana Chen, the Colorado woman at the centre of his podcast, who died by suicide in 2019 at the age of 24.

He says young people encounter conversion therapy when they are at their most vulnerable, struggling to reconcile their faith with their identity. Parents, he says, sign their children up because they’re scared and looking for answers. 

But the results, he says, are often counterproductive. 

“What it does is it often drives a wedge between the child and their parents by telling them, ‘Oh, it’s your parents’ fault that this is the way you are,'” he said.

“It destroys faith. Most people who have gone through conversion therapy end up leaving their faith and their religion.”

Nationwide ramifications

More ⁠than two dozen states and the District of Columbia restrict or prohibit conversion therapy for patients younger than 18.

Now, advocates worry all of those laws are essentially unenforceable. 

Kelley Robinson, president of Human Rights Campaign LGBT, which filed a brief in support of the law, said the Supreme Court’s “reckless decision means more American kids will suffer.”

Whatever happens next, Fung wants people considering conversion therapy to know they have options.

“There’s a growing group of people, families and young people who are tired of being offered this binary of either you’ve to be completely disavowing of your faith convictions, or you need to go to conversion therapy,” he said.

“There are families and therapists and others who are building solutions and are looking for ways to help fill this gap right now that these culture wars have created, where unfortunately people get hurt and can sometimes die from.”