Susan's Place Transgender Resources

The Supreme Court could legalize conversion therapy soon. The stakes could not be higher.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/03/the-supreme-court-could-legalize-conversion-therapy-soon-the-stakes-could-not-be-higher/

Alex Bollinger (9 March 2026)

Garrard Conley, whose memoirs inspired the 2018 film Boy Erased, is a conversion therapy survivor. And that word – survivor – is important, because his name appears in a Supreme Court amicus brief alongside others who were sent to conversion therapy but who didn't survive.

His mother, Martha Conley, told the Court that she didn't understand much about what it meant to be gay when her son was outed to her after his first semester in college. So she sought help from her church's leaders, who suggested she take Garrard to a Love In Action conversion therapy practice.

"At the program, I watched my vibrant son grow visibly more depressed," Martha Conley wrote in an amicus brief for Chiles v. Salazar, the case about whether Colorado – or any of the 27 states that ban conversion therapy – is violating therapists' free speech rights by banning conversion therapy. "We had no idea that what we thought was help would become the source of trauma he carries to this day."

She described how the program told Garrard he had to recognize that he hated his father and blame his parents for their "deficient parenting" that turned him gay. When he tried to leave the program, they withheld his personal possessions so he couldn't use his phone to call his mother for a ride.

Colorado's conversion therapy ban – and all the other states' bans – wouldn't have done anything to protect Garrard. That law only bans conversion therapy for minors, and Garrard was already a college student when he was sent to Love In Action. Moreover, that ban only applies to state-licensed therapists, and Love In Action, like most conversion therapy practices, is a Christian ministry without staff who are trained or licensed in science-based approaches to therapy.

I have my own ideas on conversion therapy. You can just call my plan: "Zap The Zealots" 🤣

Why don't we call it what it is. They want to legalize torture.

The problem lies in the medical fact that you cannot change biology with talk therapy. If that were possible, transgender people would not be taking hormones and undergoing expensive and risky surgeries.

Professional organizations, such as the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, all agree. The problem is when people whose only agenda is ideological, with no training in talk therapy, are permitted to engage in the practice without a license. They are exempt due to religious grounds. Religious counseling is permitted.

Free speech does not apply in talk therapy. That has been decided. Professional conduct is licensed and regulated for a reason. Religious exemption is a loophole in regulations designed to protect the patient.

Forcing someone to undergo such therapy without a court order is abuse, whether they are a minor or not.