Washington’s Attorney General Nick Brown led a multistate coalition in an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court Aug. 26, defending a 2019 Colorado law that prohibits licensed health professionals from practicing conversion therapy on minors.

Conversion therapy, also called sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts, are practices that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

In 2018, Washington passed SB 5722, which was also challenged in federal court. Washington’s conversion therapy ban was upheld in 2023 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected arguments against the law, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The Supreme Court recently agreed it would take up a challenge against a ban from a different state – Colorado – which will be heard later this fall.

According to Brown, Colorado’s law prohibits licensed health professionals from practicing conversion therapy on children and youth. That statute was challenged in federal court by a licensed counselor who supports conversion therapy. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that Colorado is entitled to regulate professional conduct, particularly where there is evidence of harm. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case  October 7.

“Based on the consensus view of established medical organizations, over twenty states have codified the conclusion that the practice of conversion therapy on minors always falls below the standard of care for the mental health professions,” Brown wrote in the brief.

“This … is based on voluminous studies demonstrating the practice’s harms to children and the consensus of all leading medical and mental health organizations that conversion therapy should not be conducted on children.”

The brief outlines why the court should reject the arguments against Colorado’s ban on the practice, citing First Amendment protections, states’ long history of establishing and regulating professional standards and that states have the authority to regulate harmful professional conduct. The law prohibits licensed health care providers from performing conversion therapy on patients under 18.

Colorado’s Attorney General Philip Weiser argues that the law protects young people by ensuring that licensed professionals adhere to humane and appropriate standards of care. The practice is widely rejected by major medical and psychological associations such as the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

In legal arguments, the attorney general’s office has stated that the law regulates professional conduct, not speech, and is therefore a valid regulation of the health care profession.

Many supporters of conversion therapy hold religious beliefs that view same-sex relations and gender non-conformity as morally or spiritually wrong. 

Opponents of bans argue that such laws amount to “state-sanctioned viewpoint discrimination” by targeting specific values and not particular therapeutic practices. They claim these bans shut down opposing voices through slander and censorship.