• Born Perfect

“The Ninth Circuit has affirmed that states can require licensed mental health providers to comply with ethical and professional standards prohibiting the use of unnecessary, ineffective, and harmful treatments on their minor patients.”

SEATTLE, WA — The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Monday rejected a therapist’s request for the court to reconsider its previous decision upholding the State of Washington’s law protecting minors from conversion therapy by licensed health professionals.Conversion therapy is a dangerous and discredited practice that attempts to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“The Ninth Circuit has affirmed that states can require licensed mental health providers to comply with ethical and professional standards prohibiting the use of unnecessary, ineffective, and harmful treatments on their minor patients,” said Shannon Minter (he/him) NCLR Legal Director. “These are common sense protections that unfortunately are necessary to prevent unethical therapists from defrauding parents and causing severe harm to LGBTQ youth. Every major medical and mental health organization in the country supports these laws, which are supported by decades of research and clear standards of care.”

“We applaud the Ninth Circuit for permitting states to protect survivors like myself from the unethical practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy,” which has wreaked havoc on thousands of LGBTQ youth and their families,” said Mathew Shurka, a “conversion therapy” survivor and co-founder of Born Perfect. 

In 2018, Washington passed a law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from engaging in conversion therapy with a patient under 18 years old. Every leading medical and mental health organization in the country has warned that these practices do not work and put young people at risk of serious harm, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide. Twenty-five states and over 100 localities have laws or administrative policies protecting youth from these practices or preventing the expenditure of state funds on conversion therapy.

In 2021, an anti-LGBTQ legal group filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new law on behalf of Brian Tingley, a “therapist” and advocate of “conversion therapy”. The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) successfully moved to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of Equal Rights Washington (ERW) – the state’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization and a primary supporter of the law during the legislative process. ERW and the State of Washington urged the court to uphold the law in light of the overwhelming consensus of medical and mental health professionals that conversion therapy poses a serious risk to the health and well-being of Washington’s youth. In August 2021, the federal district court for the Western District of Washington upheld the law and rejected Tingley’s challenge.

In September 2022, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, ruling that state laws protecting minors from conversion therapy by licensed health professionals are constitutional. Tingley then asked the full Ninth Circuit to order the September decision to be reconsidered by a larger panel of Ninth Circuit judges. Today, the court rejected that request.  The court’s order means that the September 2022 panel decision upholding the Washington law will be the Ninth Circuit’s final decision in the case.

Equal Rights Washington is represented in the case by NCLR and Raegen Rasnic of Skellenger Bender, P.S. 

xxx

Born Perfect is a survivor-led program created by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) in 2014 to end conversion therapy by passing laws across the country that protect LGBTQ children and young people, fighting in courtrooms to ensure their safety, and raising awareness about the serious harms caused by these dangerous practices. https://bornperfect.org.