Said Jim Campbell, lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, quoted in "Supreme Court to hear arguments on Colorado ban of conversion therapy for minors" (WaPo). Oral argument is this morning.
The Supreme Court laid out a test for state laws regulating speech by medical professionals in a 2018 case. The government must show a compelling interest to impose content-based regulation on professional speech and must narrowly tailor any such law, the court ruled. Nevertheless, the high court found the government could regulate professional conduct that “incidentally” steps on free speech rights....
The state points to studies that show conversion therapy is ineffective and harmful.... What’s more, the state argues, if the Supreme Court embraces [the therapist's] free speech arguments, it could undermine professional standards and consumer protections....
There seems to be a weakness in the whole idea of the government licensing talk therapists. People can talk to each other about whatever they want, when there's no issue of the state giving the relationship a seal of approval. Once there is a system of designating some conversationalists "licensed therapists," it must consist of line-drawing about speech.
And if Colorado gets away with its ban on conversion therapy, wouldn't that entitle some other state to ban affirming transgender identity?
UPDATED: I listened to most of the oral argument (which was available at the WaPo link). I'll have more to say when I get the transcript. 3 things I'll be looking for are: 1. Whether the state can take sides in what is really an ideological dispute, 2. Would the state's argument work in "mirror image" cases, where a state has adopted the other ideological side, and 3. Did the lawyer for Colorado really say that "talk therapy" was around at the time of the founding?
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52 comments:
Colorado Dems support Secret Gender-confusion - after school clubs. Lured in with the use of "Art Club" title. Where Democratic School Officials confuse children with age inappropriate sex and gender grooming - and then scare children into not telling their parents. I think that should be illegal.
I hate the notion that changing your gender will "make you comfortable with your body." No one can say what a teenager will feel upon transitioning, I have seen no studies that suggest transitioning results in happier, "more comfortable" individuals, and it is one hell of a gamble to allow someone to take when you wouldn't let them rent a car for a few days.
There's no doubt that some people from an early age have software that doesn't match the hardware. One imagines in the tribal days, the swishy dudes wore dresses and stayed with the women gathering and weaving while the butch girls went on the hunt. There's probably an evolutionary purpose for having a couple dudes who have man strengths and don't want to fuck women stay at camp and having a few chicks with a better color vision Sense of smell and fascination with the plants and seasons on the hunt.
Having more of an acceptable and accepted socialization of the gender fluids is a much better solution than surgical alteration. These people were born away they were and we all need to accept that no matter how strange it might be but the last thing in the world is to drug them and butcher them. Instead they need to be strengthened in the mind and the body and the soul without shame and guilt for who they are.
And if Colorado gets away with its ban on conversion therapy, wouldn't that entitle some other state to ban affirming transgender identity?
LOL. All Constitutional rights are only to be interpreted to help the left, who are exempted from all precedents. Just ask any Democrat-appointed district court judge.
Whatever they decry, is what 'their desires' demand them to do to us, have we not figured this out yet
Mosr will pass through puberty and energe as heterosexual. A minority will transition with a homosexuals identity. A minority will selfie-abort. The rest may feel a temporary respite through physical and chemical corruption and psychiatric grooming. Johns Hopkins established through clinical trials that the effect and outcomes of gender corruption cannot be predicted, other than a forward-looking treatment battery and profits for gendercare subjects and victims.
Next up: Homosexual conversion therapy, followed by Moonie cult deprogramming interventions.
A little surprised to see this has become an issue in Colorado.
A licensed therapist is a figure of authority who can improve or harm someone depending on how ethical or toxic/incompetent they are.
Aggie said...10/7/25, 9:38 AM
Aggie, Colorado, esp. under the Polis years, has become politically and culturally unrecognizable in comparison to the state I moved to almost 50 years ago. As is seen similarly in other [formerly] "red" states, Colorado is politically driven overwhelmingly by the several urban (and Aspen/Vail type mountain locations), to the exclusion of the more conservative political biases of the more rural counties.
I would hate to "pull up" my "semi-native" Colorado roots, but Wyoming and/or Montana are looking attractive these days..... :- (
Homosexual conversion therapy is grooming is a subset of transgender conversion therapy as was observed in churches, schools, scouts, etc, during the don't ask, don't tell days under a layer of privacy. The therapists have since left (pun intended) the closet.
We have a Homosexual Governor. I listened to Polis on the Ross Kaminski show (they are friends) and Polis was so ridiculous. He went on and on with this strange hypothetical assumption that everyone is a lowly racist, a lowly idiot, a lowly bigot... all in need of a government fix.
A Constant government suffocating fix - even tho most of it is imaginary.
Dems/ Polis have very low opinion of not just the opposition - but of everyone. Talk about a "king" mentality.
I have not disposed of the theory that part of the motivation is they grow anxious from not seeing enough new faces at the bar…
Normalize talking about who you want to fuck and why might lead to some radical idea like encouraging everybody to wait on doing the nasty until they are in a stable legally-recognized relationship, and we sure can't have that!
Will the court use the partisan term "conversion therapy"? We already know the editorial decision made by the Washington Post.
Is there no neutral/more accurate term for what's at stake?
And if Colorado gets away with its ban on conversion therapy, wouldn't that entitle some other state to ban affirming transgender identity?
As I've been commenting here for some time, I'm not sure that existing blue-state bans on "conversion therapy," as written, don't already prohibit "gender-affirming" conversion therapy for minors.
It also shows how far things have gone: Even those who wished to ban "anti-gay conversion therapy" never even contemplated there would be "gender-affirming" conversion therapy for minors, much less a flip-side constitutionally permissible ban.
There's an old expression in motorcycling, "When the outcome is in doubt, pin the throttle. It will either solve the problem or end the suspense". I've used that a time or two and I'm still standing. But I do not use this blindly or universally.
Please note, for example, that is bad advice if you are heading for the edge of a cliff.
Trans surgery when demanded by a minor, even with the enthusiastic support of delusional parents, is a motorcycle/cliff situation.
Conversion therapy otherwise known as sanity.
Howard,
"One imagines in the tribal days, the swishy dudes wore dresses and stayed with the women gathering and weaving while the butch girls went on the hunt. "
No sane person, nor anyone who has the slightest knowledge of anthropology, would imagine such a thing.
Perhaps we should not enable self-destructive impulses. Anyone for encouraging anorexics to take diet pills? No? Then what's the difference?
The communists have infected Colorado Public Schools.
Andrew Sullivan trying to thread the needle.
"And let’s look at what Americans actually believe “about what policy should be toward trans people”: there are big majorities for allowing trans adults to transition to the sex they want, and for banning discrimination against them, which is now the law of the land, thanks to a Trump nominee. How is that “fundamentally and morally wrong”?
According to Klein, it’s because even bigger majorities oppose sex changes for children, don’t want biological men competing against women in sports, and believe that being male or female is a function of biology, not something entirely in your head. Disagree if you want, but why is this “fundamentally and morally wrong”? It just isn’t."
Howard said...
There's no doubt that some people from an early age have software that doesn't match the hardware.
None of us really know what we’re supposed to be feeling or what we supposed to be or why we are here. We should be compassionate and respectful of other peoples feelings.
But we also need to have the best interest of people in mind. That means wanting the best outcomes and the best outcomes result from accepting reality rather than denying it.
There's no such thing as people being born the wrong sex. There are males and there are females. All other differences are simply a function of personality. If adults want to use surgery to attain a body that they like more than the one they have, then whatever. Go for it. Some people have really successful results with rhinoplasty or liposuction, for example. But it's evil and dangerous to encourage CHILDREN to think that nature somehow made a mistake in making them male or female, and that this mistake can be fixed through surgery and drugs.
they have proven, though, in power, they will not accept no limits, they will impose their abominable hegemony,
There's no doubt that some people from an early age have software that doesn't match the hardware.
Problem is, we cannot change the hardware from boy to girl or vice versa, we can only, exclusively, go from boy or girl to neuter.
Puberty is a period of confusion, dissatisfaction. Wait. Don't exploit. Don't profit on a forward-looking basis. Are lobotomies still a choice? Maybe a fetus... feature to be unBurdened... sequester the thought. Uh, unburdened.
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
During gender corruption therapy, boys and girls can be groomed to "affirm" their sexual orientation. A front hole... whore can be carved in a boy and front lobes amended. A front projectile can be amended and her front hole filled, and her breasts aborted and sequestered or redistributed. Gender affirmative action, maybe, baby. Oh, and chemical fluid injections to compel the simulation.
Licensing therapists, if it is to be done at all, should be about credentials, not speech. They can regulate the amount and type of training, but once that training is done and they hang their shingle, what gets said is between them and their customer.
I struggled to understand which side was which here! How is "gender affirming care" not "conversion therapy"? And how is talk therapy intended to help people sort out their priorities (tenets of their faith versus physical urges, in this case) an infringement of the clients' rights, when they came to the therapist voluntarily?
I mean, maybe because these are minors, "voluntarily" is an extension of parents' volition in some cases rather than specifically the young person's - but I live in Texas; there are a lot of deeply religious teens here whom I can see wanting to put what they believe God wants from them ahead of what their hormones want them to do RIGHT THIS MINUTE. And even if in some cases it's the parents, and actively not the kids, who choose a therapist of this approach over the "gender affirming" one, don't we allow parents a good bit of leeway over their children's care, and why wouldn't that leeway extend to their mental health? Especially since gender transition very definitely encroaches on drugs and surgery?
If "standard of care" is the key question and there is no reliable evidence that gender affirming care improves the mental health (especially suicidality, since that's the commonly used threat) of gender dysphoric youth (which appears to be the case), then why is gender affirming care the standard of care and not watchful waiting? (That's rhetorical... and also not: it seems to me to be at the heart of the debate.)
An approach - though not a legislative one, I don't think - would be for parents to ask, and/or therapists ethically to have to proffer, their philosophy up front. It seems at least as reasonable as finding out whether your therapist is a Jungian or a CBT type. Otherwise the therapist is acting exactly like a cult recruiter: getting under someone's defenses under false pretenses.
Democrats - esp. homosexual democratics - assume there are underground Christian Nationalist Torture Chambers - where homosexuals are water-boarded.
Democrats in Colorado have ruined a lot of small businesses.
One example = home dog and cat grooming.
Home care for animals is preferable because of the calmer environment. (I can attest to that)
At Blackpaw - they tortured my sweet male kitty. The let dogs in the room and freaked him out... and without my permission, washed him in gross perfume.
At the trained cat/dog groomer's home - she was professional, my cat was not bathed in perfume, and my animal benefited, and was groomed alone without other animals causing unwanted stress.
Polis and the evil Dems made sure to cut home-groomers off at the knees. They are all out of business now.
Leftists need to be re-programmed. They think they are Kings.
Peachy,
Wtf??? Colorado has banned business-based pet grooming? De jour or de facto?
Last weekend, I attended my gay goddaughter's bridal shower, and sat with my male-identifying niece most of the time.
A very mature young adult, looks you in the eye when speaking. I really enjoyed my new nephew, though I miss my niece.
Kirk
Not banned it - Just made it so difficult - that it vanished.
I am confused. Anther article I read (https://coloradosun.com/2025/10/07/supreme-court-conversion-therapy/) says the Federal Justice Department is arguing the case for the state of Colorado.
"Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser was in Washington, D.C., for the hearing. The solicitor general, from the U.S. Department of Justice, was handling arguments for Colorado, however. "
It's a current article, so it is not the previous administration. I wonder what justification exists for federal involvement.
Edit: Now I am really confused. I was finally able to read the WAPO article, and it says the opposite. "Challengers of the law, joined by the Trump administration."
Not banned it - Just made it so difficult - that it vanished.
Spotted owl. Whatever that smelt is. Braiding licenses.
It seems important to me to look at the consequences of policies - on both sides, though I almost always fine the consequences of leftist policies to be more damaging than those from the right - in order to assess the policies. From there, you can't always discern the real (as opposed to the stated) intent of the policy, but you can hypothesize. And given those consequences, does it really matter?
Why are we pretending that Gender Affirming Care is anything other than witchcraft?
That said, if the Constitution doesn’t forbid states from requiring licenses for practitioners of Professional Witchcraft, then it’s not an issue. Let Colorado burn itself to the ground. Colorado parents whose kids have gender dysphoria can go see a health provider in another state. And that state can ban Gender Affirming Witchcraft.
Howard (not that Howard) said...
Perhaps we should not enable self-destructive impulses. Anyone for encouraging anorexics to take diet pills? No? Then what's the difference?
Society needs to protect children and promote the creation of children.
Always support strength. Never support weakness.
Children with anorexia, or more re likely obesity, should be taught and shamed to value their health. If they insist on destroying themselves when they achieve age of consent we shouldn’t waste time or resources on them.
When people become adults they should be rewarded for their good choices and productivity and ignored when they choose hedonism and mental illness.
"Did the lawyer for Colorado really say that "talk therapy" was around at the time of the founding?"
Can confirm. The talk was so bad it was called the filibuster ;-)
"Indeed, a filibuster took place at the very first session of the Senate. On September 22, 1789, Senator William Maclay wrote in his diary that the "design of the Virginians [...] was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.""
NPR had a sympathetic interview with one of the advocates for the so-called 'Gender-Affirming Care'. Again, still, with the mystification of what is actually being discussed. What is Gender-Affirming care? Is it affirming sex change, which isn't actually 'sex change' but is really 'other sex approximation'? Yes it is. Furthermore, what is reinforced is the notion that the 'therapist' is responsible only to the client - even, maybe especially even when the client is a minor. And thus, the argument is laid bare. Does the parent have a right to be the parent, I think this is the central issue.
Peachy, Jamie: In other words, de facto -- regulations so burdensome it's not worth trying to comply with them
Joe Bar said
I am confused.
Journalists were involved, so of course the story will be some blend of obfuscation, misinterpretation, open advocacy and simply getting 30-60% of the facts wrong. That is our media today.
This entire discussion, and virtually all discussions on this subject, is full of Orwellian Newspeak.
Let's take- Gender Affirming Therapy. Gender, or rather sex, is something you're born as- and but for a literal miniscule number of people is because they are either XX or XY. Affirming gender would, quite literally, be aiding the therapy seeker to come to terms with their biological sex. In Newspeak- it means accepting the delusions that the therapy seeker is something other then that sex- and encouraging them to believe their delusions.
Let's take another Orwellian Newspeak term- Homosexual Conversion Therapy. Banned by multiple states. What is the default sexual attraction? Heterosexual. So going by plain meanings- Homosexual Conversion Therapy would mean- therapy to convert someone to homosexuality. In Newspeak it means to ban therapy to convert someone to the default position- heterosexuality. And states- liberal ones- ban any attempt to turn people normal... Anyone else see a problem with this?
Gender dysphoria is not a natural state, for anyone, including the people diagnosed with it. It's driven by the therapists, by the psychiatrists, by the medical profession. A 3 year old boy says "I'm a girl!" the default response for parents, medical professionals, and teachers should be, "No, you're not. You're a boy." And vice versa. That would stop most of this nonsense immediately. Instead, the questioning is being encouraged by medical professions and teachers. The unanswered question is, of course, WHY? There's always a purpose, an agenda, when nonsense is being presented as truth. But, WHY?
I'm sorry but, no child is confused regarding their sex without input from a deranged parent or "counseling" with a professional groomer outside the home/family.
Sex is genetic: male and female. Gender refers to sex-correlated attributes (e.g. sexual orientation): masculine and feminine, respectively. Trans refers to a state or process of divergence. There are two transgender conditions: homosexual (including "bisexual") and simulant (typically homosexual with a heterosexual kink).
That said, Dreamers of Herr Mengele... with forward-looking profits.
Remember when you first heard of the Children's Crusade from the 13th Century? And how you thought something along the lines of " wow, people used to be so easily and fatefully deceived". Tens of thousands of young people decided to take Jerusalem because well, that's what you do. It was a disaster. Few of the Crusaders returned from their journey; most died of hunger or thirst or were drowned at sea, while others were sold as slaves.
Mutilating genitalia to achieve some sort of imagined sexual congruence seems like an updated version. They will never get to their sensual Jerusalem.
Government bans on Children's Crusades raise free speech issues. Hard cases make bad law.
If you identify as heterosexual but feel inconvenient homosexual impulses can you get "gender affirming therapy" to make your body confirm to your identity? I guess not.
"The state points to studies that show conversion therapy is ineffective and harmful."
These studies all focus on conversion therapy for homosexuals.
Of course it's possible for a transgender teen to become comfortable with their birth gender through counselling, and its ludicrous for law-makers to pretend to not see the difference.
Minnesota also has this issue-
https://nypost.com/2025/09/12/opinion/stop-banning-therapists-from-talking-to-kids-about-accepting-their-biological-sex/
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