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 31st, that a law in the state of Colorado banning “conversion therapies” for LGBTQIA+ minors is equivalent to a possible “censorship of freedom of expression.”
By a vote of 8 to 1, the Supreme Court upheld Kaley Chiles, an evangelical therapist who sued the state of Colorado over its law on “conversion therapies” for minors enacted in 2019. This law prohibits doctors or mental health professionals from providing young people with therapy aimed at altering their “behaviors or gender expressions” or to “eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction to the same sex.”
Violation of this law can result in a fine of up to $5,000 and the revocation of a counselor’s professional license. “To date, no sanctions have been imposed under this law,” reports the Washington Post. However, the eight judges involved overturned a court of appeal ruling that upheld the law in question.
The case is now being sent back to lower courts. Colorado argues that it is not about stifling freedom of expression, but “banning inadequate medical care.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision constitutes a tragic setback for our country and will endanger the lives of young people,” criticized Jaymes Black, president of the nonprofit organization Trevor Project, specializing in suicide prevention for LGBTQIA+ youth. “It is proven that these practices, regardless of the names given by their proponents or court decisions, cause lasting psychological damage.”
With this vote, the Supreme Court questions any similar law, as five states partially ban the practice and twenty-three others completely ban it. This decision also challenges the accumulation of evidence showing the harmful effects of “conversion therapies.”
In a statement issued in July 2020, the United Nations condemned the physical, psychological, and sexual violence, electrocution, forced meditation, isolation, confinement, verbal abuse, and humiliation reported by many victims. This led the UN to argue that “conversion therapies” could be considered acts of torture and should be banned.
According to a study published in 2019 by the Williams Institute, 698,000 LGBTQIA+ citizens in the United States have experienced this, including 350,000 since adolescence. “Certainly, authoritarian governments have shared this conviction throughout history,” tried to justify Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, author of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion. “But the First Amendment serves as a barrier against any attempt to impose orthodoxy of thought or expression in this country.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenter, tried to defend Colorado’s law before her peers. During her speech, she reminded that scientific studies agree on the harmful nature of “conversion therapies.”
“In the end, since the majority plays with fire in this case, I fear that the people of this country will suffer the consequences,” warned Ketanji Brown Jackson from the judges’ bench. “Previously, licensed healthcare professionals had to adhere to standards in treating patients: they couldn’t do or say whatever they wanted. Today, the Court is turning its back on this tradition and rather siding with the far right.”
