SCOTUS Not Cool With Colorado Ban on Conversion Therapy

March 31, 2026·33 min·2 clips

Nearly two-thirds of minors subjected to conversion therapy attempt suicide, yet the Supreme Court just struck down Colorado's ban.

1. Strict Scrutiny hosts an emergency episode analyzing the Supreme Court's 8-1 decision in Trials v. Salazar, which challenged Colorado's ban on conversion therapy for minors. 2. Host Leah Littman is joined by Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, who helped draft Colorado's conversion therapy ban and similar laws in other states. 3. The core question is whether Colorado's law — which prohibits licensed mental health providers from attempting to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity — violates the First Amendment as an impermissible regulation of speech. 4. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, joined by seven justices; Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenter; Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor wrote a concurrence. 5. The majority held that the law triggers strict scrutiny — the most demanding standard of constitutional review — because it regulates the content and viewpoint of a therapist's speech. 6. Minter argues the majority's reading is a 'crude version of the First Amendment' because it ignores that Colorado is regulating a licensed medical treatment, not expressive speech. 7. The court found the law constitutes viewpoint discrimination by permitting a therapist to support a minor's gender identity but not to encourage denial of it — a reading Minter calls 'a complete misreading' since the word 'affirm' does not appear in the statute. 8. The ruling does not strike down Colorado's law outright; it remands to lower courts to apply strict scrutiny, leaving open the possibility Colorado could still prevail given the strength of the public-health evidence. 9. Nearly two-thirds of minors subjected to conversion therapy attempt suicide — not just experience suicidal ideation — and Minter notes there is zero evidence the practice provides any benefit. 10. Dr. Julia Sadusky, a conservative Catholic therapist, filed an amicus brief explaining that ethical, non-conversion-therapy approaches exist for working with LGBT youth from religious families without imposing predetermined outcomes — arguments the majority appeared to ignore. 11. Kagan's concurrence argues the key defect is viewpoint, not content, discrimination, and suggests that a carefully rewritten law might survive scrutiny — leaving the door open for legislative redrafting. 12. Minter expresses disappointment that Kagan and Sotomayor joined the majority framework, saying their concurrence analyzes 'a law that is different than certainly the intention behind the Colorado law.' 13. Littman notes a tension with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where the court upheld laws requiring doctors to provide information about alternatives to abortion — a professional-speech regulation the court treated as permissible. 14. Lower courts have also upheld 'heartbeat law' scripts that require providers to make statements about fetal heartbeats, even where those statements are false or misleading, while this court struck down Colorado's evidence-based ban. 15. Justice Jackson's dissent warns that the ruling may prevent states from regulating mental health professionals who counsel clients toward suicide, validate vaccine misinformation, or tell patients with eating disorders that they are overweight. 16. Minter contrasts the ruling with last term's Scermetti decision, where the court held that states have broad traditional authority to regulate medical practice — a principle the court did not extend here. 17. The episode is conducted as a focused legal interview, with Littman guiding Minter through each step of the legal analysis in plain language accessible to non-lawyers. 18. Tone is urgent and openly critical of the majority; both participants express visible frustration but ground every criticism in specific textual or doctrinal arguments. 19. Listeners who follow LGBT rights litigation, First Amendment professional-speech doctrine, or the Roberts Court's treatment of medical regulation will find this essential. 20. Those seeking a politically neutral analysis or a broad survey of the Supreme Court term will find this episode narrowly focused and openly advocatory.

As heard by us

A pointed Strict Scrutiny episode on Colorado's conversion therapy ban, Supreme Court skepticism, and the civil rights stakes behind the case.

Strict Scrutiny takes up the Supreme Court's apparent skepticism toward Colorado's conversion therapy ban, with Shannon Minter joining the show's court-focused format.

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Strict Scrutiny keeps the tone sharp and grimly determined, with a guest appearance from Shannon Minter.

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