Assume the worst; inflict the worst. That was the strategy Children’s National Hospital (CNH) pursued towards a Christian counselor who referred a mentally troubled teenager to their care. “When I referred the child to the hospital, I was met with unfair treatment, religious discrimination, and hostility from the doctors and the psychiatrists,” recalled Tyrone Obaseki, a therapist licensed in multiple states. “The hospital looked at my website … they looked at my story … and they confused my website as me being a provider that offers conversion therapy.”

Based in uber-liberal Washington, D.C., CNH felt comfortable dismissing Obaseki, obstructing his access, and crossing state lines to file professional charges against him.

Not only did CNH inflict “10 months of grueling emotional toll, distress, fear of losing the license” upon this professional counselor, but they also jeopardized the welfare of his patient. “I was unable to provide a warm, professional hand-off, was not able to participate in the client’s treatment,” Obaseki told The Washington Stand. “There were times where he [the child] was asking for treatment or clinical help from his previous therapist [in] which they denied help.”

After surviving this gauntlet of intimidation and harassment, Obaseki countered the hospital with a lawsuit of his own. “Children’s National Hospital attacked me. They religiously profiled me and attacked me for trying to help a child,” he declared.

Professionalism

To use the current political jargon, this behavior is “weird.” It is not normal for hospitals to squint at highly credentialed therapists (Obaseki has an M.Div., M.A., LPC, and LCDC credentials), who have “years of experience in referring patients to medical facilities and cooperating with Children’s Hospitals on behalf of mutual patients,” as the lawsuit sets forth, and seek to discredit such therapist on scant — even nonexistent — evidence. After a 10-month investigation, Obaseki was cleared of any wrongdoing, even under Virginia’s unnecessarily strict law against “conversion therapy.”

“As professionals, we understand the rule of doing no harm, and we also understand the importance of treating all patients with unconditional positive regard,” responded Obaseki. “So, I’m fully aware that I have to be a counselor that understands the scope of practice.”

A distinctive feature of Obaseki’s practice is that “clients can ask for traditional counseling, or they can ask for Christian counseling, which falls under a different contractual obligation,” said Obaseki. “With clients that are experiencing unwanted same-sex attraction [or gender identity] issues … they can reach out for Christian, pastoral counseling.” Such counseling “sits under a different auspice,” he asserted, “a body of control that should not be regulated and controlled by the government.”

“I understand that I’m not the therapist for everybody,” Obaseki added. “My unique skill sets may not be a good fit for everybody. … So, with my over 10 years’ experience in counseling, I vet my clients. I make sure that they understand the scope of practices. So that way there’s no negative transference.”

In other words, Obaseki strives to ensure that, “when the client comes for Christian counseling, they get Christian counseling. When a client comes for traditional counseling, they [get] traditional counseling.” If the hospital had approached him with inquiries instead of accusations, they might have discovered this fact.

Transformation

Instead, the hospital misinterpreted the emphasis of Obaseki’s counseling practice on transformation as proof that he was engaged in the widely discredited and abusive practice of “conversion therapy.”

Partly, the hospital was confused because of the Left’s political redefinition of the term “conversion therapy” in laws designed to ban all sexual orientation change efforts, most of which rely on talk therapy, Family Research Council Senior Director of Government Affairs Quena Gonzalez told The Washington Stand. “These laws are intentionally designed to forbid only one type of counseling, the counseling he or she might seek if they have unwanted same-sex attractions or discomfort with the sex they were born with,” he said. “It becomes only legal for a therapist to help a patient to shift in one direction — toward an LGBT identity and never away from it.”

“The real conversion therapy is on the other side,” added Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council. “The hallmark of good therapy is curiosity, which looks like asking questions about what is going on. But, when it comes to LGBT issues, those good practices are simply nonexistent.”

To be sure, Obaseki’s counseling practice, Transformative Counseling & Wellness Solutions, does emphasize transformation, even for people experiencing unwanted sexual desires or gender identity. Its web address, transform-mind.com, is inspired by Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” As Obaseki explained, “in order to walk with the ‘mind of Christ’ [1 Corinthians 2:16], you have to make sure that you’re renewing your mind with the Word of God.”

His church also emphasizes transformation. Obaseki is the pastor of Global Freedom Ministries in Houston, Texas, whose mission is “Producing Whole People in a Broken Society by the Power of God’s Word.” They cite 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

This implies that, contrary to the suspicious assumptions of CNH staff who sought to discredit Obaseki, transformation is actually what many people need. Often it is what leads them to seek out a professional counselor in the first place. In fact, transformation played a crucial role in Obaseki’s own life. “I also spent 18 years in the foster care system, where I also was subjected to sexual abuse, chemical restraints,” he said. “I dealt with trauma myself, so it set me up to help individuals who are dealing with issues.”

Through both his counseling profession and his ministry, Global Freedom Ministries, Obaseki aims to help people escape difficult situations that few people are equipped to address. In addition to “helping individuals with same-sex attraction” and gender-identity, he also helps “youth who age out of the foster care system,” “people with drug use addiction issues,” and even people with “unwanted attractions to children.” In many cases, transformation is exactly what these people need, and it is exactly what Obaseki offers.

But, due to the blinders of gender ideology, CNH missed the larger picture in its narrow-minded attack. It, too, needs transformation.

For while Obaseki offers transformation to everyone, he does not force it on anyone. “It’s not the practitioner that does the converting. We leave that up to the Holy Spirit to do the converting,” he said. He described his role as creating opportunities for “the Holy Spirit to come in and do the transformation and the change. And that’s what we do as people of God.”

Freedom

Obaseki protested government rules about what counselors could and couldn’t say, arguing that this falls outside the government’s authority — particularly if it’s a Christian counselor in a Christian setting. “The government cannot tell a Christian counselor or pastor how to deal with the parishioner or any Christian that is seeking help,” he declared. In particular, “no government official should be able to tell the counselor or the pastor how the Holy Spirit should move. You can’t silence the counselor, and you can’t silence the Holy Spirit.”

“The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth,” he continued. “The renewing of the mind takes place as the Holy Spirit guides you in the truth of the Word.” No reasonable interpretation of religious freedom would recognize government authority over the content of a religious text.

Here Obaseki was quoting Jesus’s words to his disciples from John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” Some English translations, including the RSV and CSB, translate the word “Helper,” which describes the Holy Spirit, as “Counselor.”

Obaseki is not the only Christian counselor to experience the chilling effect of government policies that require counselors to push kids into LGBT identities. “A lot of Christian therapists are being muzzled,” Obaseki lamented. “Many practitioners have come forward, and many lawyers have come forward and said that they were scared of retaliation, that they were scared of losing their livelihood.”

“We are being told to be silent regarding helping minors who have unwanted same-sex attraction” or transgender identity. Christian therapists want to see policy change, he explained, so that “everybody who has dealt with unwanted same-sex attraction [and transgender identity] … can receive the help that they need, and that the child who’s confused today can also walk in deliverance tomorrow.”

Encouragement and Call to Prayer

Obaseki encouraged Christian counselors and people in tough circumstances to “always stand firm on the Word of God.” Scripture itself exhorts believers to do so. “‘After doing all to stand, stand,’” he quoted (Ephesians 6:13), “because we know that God is alive and he’s an ‘ever present help’ [Psalm 46:1] ‘in a time of need’ [Hebrews 4:16].”

Obaseki asked Christians to pray like Jesus did on the night he was betrayed, “that God’s will would be manifested” (Matthew 26:39) and “that Jesus Christ will get all the glory” (John 17:5). Additionally, he asked Christians to “pray that God would bring more people forward to be bold, vocal, and visible about transformation for people who are struggling with same-sex attraction” and transgender identity; after all, only by God’s power can people be truly transformed into his image.

Such a thing as prayer may seem small and despised in the eyes of the world, and especially in the eyes of the transgender ideologues at CNH. But those whose minds have been transformed by the Word of God understand that “the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16).