A Colorado law bans conversion therapy against the LGBTQ+ community. The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a case to a law in Colorado that bans conversion therapy aiming at people based on their sexual orientations. The justice was brought by Kaley Chiles, who argued that this, in fact, violates the freedom of speech rights under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
But what is Conversion Therapy?
Conversion Therapy is when there is effort to change someone’s sexual orientation. This includes changing their behaviors and expressions. The whole idea of it is to change their attraction towards the same gender.
On April 8th, 2015, the Obama administration called a removal of the conversion therapies that target someone’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. As a result, 17 states have introduced this bill and seek to ban these therapies.
In 1970, sexology research was brought to the attention of the American Psychiatric Association. This was organized by LGTBQ activists because they were convinced that people were being treated differently, as a result, has contributed to social stigma. With the removal of the diagnosis from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), cultural attitudes about homosexuality changed in the United States and in other countries.
Similar changes took place in the international mental health community. Then in 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases.
Although these changes have been settled for the last two decades, social and religious conservatives have advanced their behavior model of homosexuality. They believed that if homosexual behavior can be changed in a perosn, the it cannot be an inborn trait like race. They say that homosexuality is not born and that variations of long disproven psychoanalytic theories of homosexuality’s etiology can serve as a basis for offering conversion therapies.
Colorado officials wrote in their brief that the state measure regulates conduct, not speech. “States have long regulated medical practices to protect patients from harmful professional conduct,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Colorado’s law protecting young people from unscientific and cruel gay conversion therapy practices is humane, smart, and appropriate” (nbcnews.com).
The Supreme Court has refused several similar challenges to conversion therapy. This case, in particular, has been taken up because it has overwhelmed many kids who are trying to find themselves. “The state countered that the ban on conversion therapy was based on “overwhelming evidence that efforts to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity are unsafe and ineffective…” (scotusblog.com).
The Supreme Court has announced that the new case will be decided and argued in the courts next term. It will start in October and end in June of 2026.
