What is the Supreme Court case regarding conversion “therapy” about?

This week, the US Supreme Court is hearing a case from a counselor in Colorado, who alleges that her right to practice how she chooses, and her free speech, are inhibited by Colorado's ban on conversion “therapy” for minors. The counselor in question wishes to practice faith-based “counseling” in an effort to help minors “who want to reduce feelings of same-sex attraction or feel more comfortable in their bodies” (1).

This may seem innocent enough, and perhaps even admirable, on the surface to “help minors feel more comfortable in their bodies”. Yet, when we peel back the layers on what conversion “therapy” really is, we see that this anti-affirming stance is far from therapeutic.

Conversion therapy is a mix of various “interventions” to convince kids and adults that they are not gay, not trans, not nonbinary.

Conversion therapy consists of slowly breaking down a young person’s will and identity, by twisting power, scripture, and expectations, and therapy speak to fit the heteronormative, violent, white supremacist norms of modern mainstream white Christianity. (2)

There is no evidence to support the efficacy of conversion “therapy”, and all of the major medical and psychiatric organizations oppose the practice. (2)

Worse still, this “therapy” can be violent. Sometimes, people have painful sensations or bad smells or tastes administered with same sex stimuli in an attempt to “rewire” them. (2) This is truly modern torture, and we cannot allow it to happen.

Those who survive conversion “therapy” are much more likely to face negative consequences later in life, including;

-6x more likely to develop severe depression

-8x more likely to have attempted suicide

-3x more likely to be high risk for HIV and other STDs

-3x more likely to use illegal drugs (2)

Currently, 26 states, plus DC, and 13 countries globally have banned the practice.

We cannot allow “freedom of speech” and a therapist's personal faith to dictate our public policy and laws.

Faith is, by definition, a matter of deeply personal conviction. As therapists, we must always hold two truths; our own experiences, thoughts, and convictions, and the reality of what our clients need, and who they are. It is not our role to bend a client to our worldview, particularly a minor.

The therapists who practice conversion “therapy” are simply providing assistance for teens to head more deeply into the closet. While that might temporarily alleviate some suffering,( by being better able to mask their true selves and fit in with peers, family, faith, and community), the long term effects can be deeply harmful.

We cannot, nor should we attempt, to “pray the gay away”. In so doing, we are modeling to young people that who they are is fundamentally unacceptable, before people and before God.

I welcome therapists of all backgrounds to practice, to hold their convictions, to keep their faith if they see fit, and to promote the causes that are important to them in their free time. We should all be active in our families, communities, and politically in causes that we believe will bring about a better world. But, the therapy office is no place for pushing our personal beliefs onto others, especially minors.

Conversion “therapists” and the Supreme Court might argue that affirming therapy is also pushing one's beliefs onto people. However, affirming therapy does not torture clients with aversions “therapy”. Affirming therapy is like an open door; the therapist will support a client’s exploration and thoughts, but will not give you answers, identity, or try to change your sexuality or gender.

In fact, most affirming therapists see a large percentage of cis and heterosexual clients. If affirming therapy were “converting” in nature, would it not be the case that our straight/cis clients are “converted” to LGBTism? And yet, they are not.

Because gender and sexuality are innate and evolving, not taught. And because real therapy, by a trained professional, involves an open conversation with another adult, who is more interested in your experience than their own values. At its core, affirming therapy is non-coercive, collaborative, and consensual at every step, in stark contrast to conversion “therapy”.

Conversion “therapy” sets out with a goal in mind; convert, change, revert the person to straightness and cis-ness. Affirming therapy sets out with curiosity for the human experience and an open mindedness to learn from the client. The two practices are fundamentally opposed in both process and values.

I fear that the Supreme Court is likely to weigh in favor of the therapist in this case, meaning that conversion therapy bans will be struck down.

If that happens, we will see a significant rise in the rate of mental health issues, suicides, and substance abuse amongst the LGBT population.

Our community desperately needs a “win” right now. With the LGBT hotline portion of the national suicide hotline shut down this summer, it feels like LGBT people are under attack in all directions.

I wish that I had something comforting to say about all of it, but I do not. I am a human too, going through this too, day by day. I do believe that history bends toward the arc of justice, as Dr. MLK Jr said.

I am finding comfort in the small things- making a new dish for dinner, spending time with my cats and my plants and spouse, and trying to remain kind and curious in a harsh, violent, angry world.

(1) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/07/supreme-court-conversion-therapy-ban-00596373

(2) https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/what-is-conversion-therapy

Suicide Prevention; My Story

As September turns to October, I’m thinking about suicide prevention. September is suicide prevention month.

But suicide prevention began long before September for me, and will continue on for the rest of my life.

Today, I have decided to share some personal narrative on why suicide prevention is so important to me, personally.

This post is deeply personal to me, and I will try to only share what is necessary to convey my thoughts and pay my respects.

Please be warned, this post will discuss suicide, mental illness, self harm, death.

I have known several people to die by suicide. Each time, the loss is a shock, a deep sadness, and an anger. That makes sense, in terms of the stages of grief, and typical human emotion.

Losing someone “before their time” is excruciating, but to add the element of self-directed violence? It is beyond comprehension.

It will leave a person sobbing, fuming, shaken, numb, motivated, devastated; in no particular order, and perhaps all at the same time.

I felt guilt, too, with each passing; guilt I hadn’t somehow intervened and stopped them. Guilt that perhaps I had no idea they were suffering. Guilt I had survived, and they had not. I would think about them on special occasions; prom, graduation, weddings. All the things they did not get to experience, but I did.

And I felt deep confusion; how could the world be like this? For me, a devout Christian until almost 18 years old, and a currently deeply spiritual person, suicide punctured an irreprable hole in the pink balloon of my worldview which I was so desperate to keep afloat.

Today I want to share a little about the story of an acquaintance of mine; she died by suicide at a very young age. Her loss has had an indelible mark on my life. She has motivated me to pursue my own mental health, and to become a social worker and therapist in large part so I could be there for someone like her, in their time of need.

When I was about 16, I spent about 6 months in a residential facility in the American west. I will, perhaps, discuss the reason for this stay at a later time in more depth.

Note: As a therapist, I walk a fine line between self disclosure in a professional and helpful way, and TMI. For the purposes of the Internet, I will not provide much information on this situation.

The girl, who I will call Lori, was still in grade school, but we shared a housing facility during part of the program. She was a very friendly, outgoing, funny, spirited girl. I remember thinking she was cool and fun, in spite of being much, much younger than most of the rest of us. I also wondered about her, being so young and in a residential facility. I didn’t know anything about her backstory. She seemed to want recovery, and I thought that she would likely succeed once home. She seemed motivated, fairly content, and like she wanted to move forward in her life.

About a year and a half later, I found out through facebook that Lori had died by suicide. She was still in grade school. I was devastated. Though I hadn’t known her very long or very well, the death of someone so young- not even adolescent yet- struck me like a freight train.

Myself and the other girls who had been at the facility had an online facebook group to share news with one another. We were all shocked, horrified, and aghast. How could this happen? How on earth could a child successfully end their own life? And WHY?

At the same time, we all understood some tiny part of the “why”, as we had all been in a residential treatment facility for eating disorders- themselves a slow suicide, many argue. And yet, to see someone else suffer, especially someone who was so young, and so bright- we were all shattered by her loss.

After her loss, I had a crisis of faith. I truly could not reconcile a loving God allowing a child to suffer, and ultimately take her own life. I lost my faith for some time after that. Never fully; but I felt abandoned by God, and questioned the existence of any Being outside of humans. After all, how could a good God allow this to happen? Up to that point, my faith had been the central point of my entire life. I never thought that I would leave the Church, but I did.

I also realized that I wanted to do something with my life that didn't harm the world, and maybe even helped it a little. If the world was full of nonsensical violence, loss, and darkness, and if perhaps God as I’d known him didn’t exist as I’d known him, didn’t I still have a responsibility to show up for my belief? Even if my belief was simply that there was still some good in the world, along with all the evil, the bad, the ugly, the suicides, the murders, the sexual violence, the abuse?

With the suggestion of a trusted therapist, I made the decision to pursue psychology and therapy as my future career. I made this decision shortly after learning about Lori’s death. I wanted to honor her, and to try to do something to make the world better, so that little girls didn’t have to feel the way Lori felt, and do what Lori did in a moment of desperation.

I think about Lori often, still. Much of my work- both as a therapist and as a clinical social worker, is about mental health. I speak with people often, usually several times per week, and sometimes several times per day, about suicide. I directly ask people about their thoughts around wanting to kill themselves or someone else.

I also work indirectly with suicide prevention- I firmly believe that every therapy session and every encounter with a decent, kind, open minded, and open hearted human is suicide prevention.

At the end of the day, we know that suicide often happens out of desperation, and is usually a quick decision. In fact, research has shown that substances drastically increase the risk of suicide by estimates of over 5.8 times (1). Other studies show that most people complete or attempt suicide within ten minutes of deciding to make a suicidal gesture or act (2).

We can teach people small interventions through therapeutic techniques to allow them to tolerate difficult thoughts and feelings, we can help create barriers to harm like gun locks and safe storage of sharps and medications, and we can check in on our friends and family when we are concerned for them.

These seemingly small gestures can add time between someone we love making a quick, life altering, life ending decision, and acting on that decision.

We can donate to food banks, we can write to our congress person about issues that affect our community, and we can advocate for safer, less desperate conditions for all of our fellow humans. Paid parental leave, livable wage, affordable housing, social services, aid to the elderly, and an eradication of racial, sexual, gendered violence.

All of these would greatly reduce the desperation of our fellow human, and all of these are part of suicide prevention.

I wish I could have been there for Lori. I wish I could have saved her. Her and the other people I have known to die by suicide.

Even knowing what I know and doing what I do for a living for over half a decade, I am never un-moved by suicide.

I am very grateful for my own life, especially after seeing the way a young person's death shatters a community. It motivated me to keep pursuing recovery. I did not want my loved ones to feel what I felt when Lori died. And, I was highly motivated to make a change in her honor. Her loss lit the fire I needed to keep going.

I will keep attempting to add to a world, to honor Lori and the others who died far too young, and to be a piece of the puzzle of suicide prevention, particularly in young people.

If you are in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States, or go to the nearest emergency department for assistance. Suicide is never an answer.

Sources:

Alison Athey, Jaimie Shaff, Geoffrey Kahn, Kathryn Brodie, Taylor C. Ryan, Holly Sawyer, Aubrey DeVinney, Paul S. Nestadt, Holly C. Wilcox, Association of substance use with suicide mortality: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis, Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports, Volume 14, 2025.

Deisenhammer, E. A., Ing, C. M., Strauss, R., Kemmler, G., Hinterhuber, H., & Weiss, E. M.(2009). The duration of the suicidal process: How much time is left for intervention between consideration and accomplishment of a suicide attempt? Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 70, 19–24. https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.07m03904

What does “Affirming” therapy mean?

Affirming therapy means that I support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other diverse gender and sexual identities, in my practice and in my personal life.

LGBT people face the same issues as non-LGBT folks, but the added pressures and discrimination of being LGBT.

I know that being gay, bi, transgender, or lesbian is not a mental illness, but that the way that society treats LGBT people contributes to the higher rates of mental health issues amongst the community.

I understand gay culture and gay humor. It can really add to therapy to be able to relate to your therapist on a cultural level.

Now more than ever, with LGB and particularly T people being threatened with extreme force, censorship, abuse, and death, affirming therapy is an important tool for wellness.

All therapists should be affirming therapists, but sadly, many are not.

While not the traditional sense of the term, I also like to think that my feminist approach, being trauma informed, anti-racist, and pro immigrant is another sense of the term “affirming”.

The struggles of LGBT people, women, black and brown people, immigrants, disbled people, homeless people, and mentally ill people are all intertwined.

I affirm the value of all these people and welcome learning from all such experiences. It is an honor to affirm the diversity of life experiences that I witness as a therapist.