On May 15, 2018, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed the state’s Youth Mental Health Protection Act, prohibiting state-licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient under 18 years old. In January 2019, an anti-LGBTQ legal group filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new law on behalf of Christopher Doyle, a therapist and advocate of conversion therapy.

NCLR and co-counsel filed a complaint on behalf of Katherine McCobb, against California-licensed marriage and family therapist Lloyd Willey. Willey told McCobb that being a lesbian is unnatural and pathological and that her sexual orientation could be changed through so-called “conversion therapy,” which has been discredited as ineffective, unethical, and dangerous. McCobb paid Willey more than $70,000 for eight years of therapy based on fraudulent, harmful lies.