Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) signed a bill and an executive order on Monday that expands a civil cause of action against and bars state funding from so-called “conversion therapy.” The measures come after the Supreme Court found a 2019 Colorado law to be unconstitutional at the end of March. But Colorado was not about to give its counselors free rein to seek the best interests of young people.

Supreme Court Ruling

As the court described it in Chiles v. Salazar, the term “conversion therapy” can refer to “physical techniques such as electric shock therapy aimed at changing an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” but the Colorado law “reaches further, forbidding ‘any practice or treatment … that attempts … to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,’” including simply talk therapy.

Such a bait-and-switch has become commonplace. In recent years, dozens of progressive jurisdictions have adopted measures banning conversion therapy, even though the discredited procedures are no longer performed. However, “conversion therapy” laws like Colorado’s are written broadly enough to sweep up simple talk therapy — which is frequently practiced. Effectively, these progressive jurisdictions have banned counseling that helps a person leave a homosexual or transgender lifestyle, while permitting counseling that helps them embrace these lifestyles.

The result of this one-way ratchet is an artificially high number of people identifying as some facet of the LGBT kaleidoscope — even individuals who don’t like their LGBT identity but cannot find the help they need to re-embrace their God-given identity. In other words, the strategy is long on political cynicism and short on caring for the needs of real people.

“Colorado’s law addressing conversion therapy does not just ban physical interventions. In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint,” the court concluded. “Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety, but the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.”

The verdict was so clear that progressive Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority. However, Kagan and Sotomayor filed a brief concurring opinion, in which they explained that, since Colorado’s law clearly “regulates speech based on viewpoint,” they had no choice but to side with the majority. However, they suggested that, if Colorado had instead enacted a content-based but viewpoint-neutral law, “it would raise a different and more difficult question.”

Definition Change

The Colorado legislature took the hint from this concurrence. The Civil Actions for Conversion Therapy Survivors Act had been introduced a week before the court issued its ruling, with the obvious purpose of expanding the right of civil action for those who encountered counseling unfriendly to the LGBT agenda. The Supreme Court ruling against Colorado’s 2019 law prompted the state Senate to review the language. In the enacted version of the bill, an added section deleted the offending definitions on which even progressive justices looked unfavorably and replaced them with more neutral-sounding definitions.

For instance, the old version of the law defined “conversion therapy” as: “any practice or treatment by a licensee, registrant, or certificate holder that attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

The newly enacted law changed the definition to read: “any practice or treatment by a licensed mental health-care provider that seeks to direct a patient toward a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome, or eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of a particular sex or gender, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity the patient is directed toward” (changes highlighted with italics).

The legislature also rewrote the exceptions section of the law, which previously clarified that “conversion therapy” did not include: “(I) Acceptance, support, and understanding for the facilitation of an individual’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual-orientation-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices, as long as the counseling does not seek to change sexual orientation or gender identity, or (II) Assistance to a person undergoing gender transition.” Combined with the prohibition, these exceptions demonstrated clear viewpoint discrimination in the eyes of the Supreme Court.

But even liberal legislatures do not like looking on as their laws are legally lobotomized. So, the Colorado legislature scrapped those exemptions and offered three new ones:

“counseling or therapy that provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a patient or facilitates a patient’s coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, without seeking to direct the patient toward a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome;”

“counseling or therapy that is neutral with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity and that does not seek to direct the patient toward a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome; or”

“counseling or therapy related to a patient’s sexual behaviors, practices, or relationships, provided that the counseling or therapy does not seek to direct the patient toward a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity.”

In crafting these new definitions and exemptions, the Colorado legislature was clearly trying to out-maneuver potential legal challenges by writing Kaley Chiles, the victorious plaintiff of the previous lawsuit, out of the law. As the Supreme Court noted in its opinion, “Chiles ‘does not begin counseling’ on any topic ‘with any predetermined goals’” but “seeks to help her clients reach their own stated objectives.” Voila, the law now only applies to those with “predetermined” goals.

Whether Colorado could persuade the court that this change meaningfully distinguishes their new law from the one the court ruled against remains to be seen, but they at least established a semantic distinction.

Civil Action Expansion

The original purpose of the law was to expand the right of civil action, and the bill still did that, too. Its primary effect was to remove any statute of limitations to a civil right of action, at least for any claim still actionable on July 1, 2026, when the bill takes effect.

The bill further stipulates that “the cause of action described in this section survives the death of the person who underwent sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts and may be brought or maintained by the person’s personal representative or estate.” This provision sustains the narrative that “conversion therapy” procedures are dangerous and may contribute to a person’s death. In reality, talk therapy is highly unlikely to cause a person’s death, but the provision applies regardless of the cause of death.

If there are ever claims made under the estate provision, it will likely be because transgender activists took control of the estates of gender-confused young people who committed suicide, and who also went to see a counselor who tried to help them with their underlying mental health issues, not just affirm them in a transgender identity.

Perhaps this is interpreting the statute broadly, but that’s how the law requires itself to be interpreted. “It is the intent of the General Assembly,” it declared, “that this section be interpreted broadly to effectuate its remedial purpose of providing civil remedies to persons harmed by sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts.”

The Colorado Senate (41-23) and House (42-22) both approved the final version of the bill on May 7, although the bill was apparently not transmitted to the governor’s office until weeks later. Governor Polis approved the legislation on June 1, as a recognition of LGBT Pride Month.

Executive Order

At the same ceremony, Polis also signed an executive order that “Each Agency shall take appropriate steps to ensure no State funds are allocated or spent by their respective Agencies for sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts.” The order defined “sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts” almost identically to the revised definitions for “conversion therapy” approved by the legislature.

“In our Colorado for all, everyone can live authentically, and should not be subject to hateful and simply ineffective conversion therapy,” Polis propagandized. “Conversion Therapy is harmful, can traumatize kids,” — here he plays to the caricature of discredited and obsolete procedures — “and is a scam to waste people’s hard-earned money” — and here he throws an elbow at the talk therapy recently vindicated by the Supreme Court.

“People shouldn’t be ripped off by those falsely claiming that they can change who you are attracted to or who you are,” Polis reiterated.

This last statement reveals the true motivation for progressive jurisdictions to crack down on non-coercive talk therapy. Every time such counseling successfully helps a patient recover his or her God-given gender identity or sexual desires, it demonstrates that the LGBT identity categories are not, in fact, immutable, as activists like to claim. And if these categories are not immutable, then the decisions people make to assume these identities must be treated as individual choices, not as civil rights classes.

In other words, for the LGBT political project, what is at stake in suppressing talk therapy efforts to change sexual orientation is the credibility of their entire narrative.