On March 31, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Chiles v. Salazar which prohibits conversion in Colorado therapy for minors potentially violates the First Amendment rights of licensed therapists. The ruling effectively jeopardizes bans on conversion therapy in more than 20 states and sends a devastating message to LGBTQ communities across the country.
Conversion therapy is a harmful and discredited practice aimed at changing a person’s personality sexual orientation or gender identity. It is still legal in over 20 states.
By 2026, 23 states and Washington, D.C., will outright ban, and four states and Puerto Rico will restrict, licensed health care providers from introducing LGBTQ youth to conversion therapy. The Supreme Court ruling could invalidate laws in nearly two dozen states.
More troubling, the laws do not limit the practice among religious providers, many of whom are neighbors, pastors, and people who are part of our daily lives.
Conversion therapy doesn’t just happen in the therapist’s office. It can also come from within.
I used to tell people jokingly that I could have won an Oscar for the role I played as an honest person. Because of my extreme self-consciousness growing up as a gay child, I had a heightened sense of awareness of how straight men should dress, act, and talk. I trained myself to act like the guys I knew.
For all of me adolescenceI myself gender-police for my supply sexuality remained hidden. I felt that the more I could blend in, the better my chances would be of being accepted, staying safe, and staying out of hell. I even had my room in a fraternity house, which I had specially joined to hide my gayness, with posters of Heidi Klum on the walls and Playboy magazines that visitors could see.
What I realize now, looking back, is that I was practicing a version of conversion therapy on myself.
One of my clients, a man in his fifties, is still living with the effects of conversion therapy he underwent decades ago. He became religious and attended a religious school, where he was expelled and later expelled. His parents then sent him to conversion therapy. To this day, he gets worrying when he wakes up and feels shame about his sexuality. Throughout his life, he relied on substances to be intimate with another man.
One of the things that conversion therapy does, which is particularly soul-killing, is to rob a person of what they consider their identity to be sacred and honorable. It leaves an unforgettable impression on them self concept.
In August 2025, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) filed an amicus brief in Chiles v. SalazarAmerica joined Psychiatric The association and 12 other major medical and mental health organizations presented the Court with scientific evidence that conversion therapy is ineffective and associated with long-term psychological harm.
After the ruling on March 31, the American Psychiatric Association issued an official statement that conversion therapy is “not a legitimate therapeutic treatment” and leading health institutions concluded that these are “potentially harmful and discredited practices” that are not supported by scientific evidence. APA President Arthur C. Evans Jr., Ph.D., warned that the decision threatens not only the ban on conversion therapy, but the broader authority of state licensing boards to implement best practices for consumer safety and protection. Research from the Trevor Project and the Williams Institute found that LGBTQ youth who underwent conversion therapy were twice as likely to report trying. suicide.
When LGBTQ people grow up without affirming homes, affirming classrooms, or affirming communities, their absence sends the message that who they are must be hidden or changed—which is, in fact, what conversion therapy is trying to do.
A therapist friend who creates content specifically for gay men made a video in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, stressing that just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s good, especially when it comes to medicine and mental health. Time and time again, we have seen treatments that were once considered good or acceptable turn out to be harmful.
There are many laws across the United States today that are not good. I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, and spent my high school years in the closet when ARS 15-716 was in effect, a law that prohibited Arizona schools from “positively portraying homosexuality” or offering any LGBTQ endorsement. education. I often wonder if having an LGBTQ-affirming education when I was in school would have made it easier to accept something I struggled with myself. The Arizona law was only repealed in 2019 and is an example of a law that was neither good nor fair.
Essential Readings in Conversion Therapy
One day, the same will be said about the verdict of the Supreme Court. The question is how many more people will be hurt before they get there.
