In a context where the Trump administration is enforcing a transphobic policy that could lead to mass violence, according to the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, the decision of the Supreme Court could escalate the effects. The institution ruled on Tuesday, March 31, that a Colorado state law banning “conversion therapies” for LGBTQIA+ minors is equivalent to a possible “censorship of freedom of expression.”
By a ruling of 8 votes to 1, the Supreme Court upheld Kaley Chiles, an evangelical therapist who challenged the Colorado state law on “conversion therapies” for minors enacted in 2019. This law prohibits doctors or mental health professionals from providing therapy to young people aimed at changing their “behaviors or gender expressions” or to “eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction to the same sex.”
The violation of this law can result in fines of up to $5,000 and the revocation of the counselor’s professional license. The Washington Post reports that “Colorado authorities state that to this day, no sanctions have been issued under this law.” However, the eight judges involved overturned a court of appeals ruling that had upheld the law in question.
The case is now being referred back to lower courts. Colorado argues that it is not about stifling freedom of expression, but “to prohibit insufficient quality medical care.”
“The decision of the Supreme Court constitutes a tragic setback for our country and will endanger the lives of young people,” said Jaymes Black, president of the non-profit organization Trevor Project, specializing in suicide prevention for LGBTQIA+ youth. “It is proven that these practices, regardless of the names given by their supporters or court decisions, cause lasting psychological harm.”
With this vote, the Supreme Court calls into question any similar laws, as five states partially ban the practice and twenty-three others completely prohibit it. This decision challenges the accumulation of evidence showing the harmful effects of “conversion therapies.”
According to a study published in 2019 by the Williams Institute, 698,000 LGBTQIA+ citizens in the United States have undergone these therapies, including 350,000 since adolescence. “Certainly, authoritarian governments have shared this belief throughout history,” tried to justify Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, author of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion. “But the First Amendment serves as a bulwark against any attempt to impose orthodoxy of thought or expression in this country.”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the sole dissenter, tried to defend Colorado’s law to her peers. She reminded that scientific studies agree on the harmful nature of “conversion therapies.”
“In the end, since the majority is playing with fire in this case, I fear that the people of this country will suffer the consequences,” Ketanji Brown Jackson warned from the judges’ bench. “Previously, licensed health professionals had to adhere to standards in patient treatment: they could not do or say whatever they pleased. Today, the Court is turning its back on this tradition.” and has chosen to align with the far right.
