People attend the WorldPride International Rally and March on Washington for Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in June. Conservative judges might allow lawmakers to reinstate the practice of conversion therapy, which aims to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ+ people. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Week after week, a teenage Brandon Long sat through counseling sessions that he said framed his identity as a failure.

Now an ordained minister in northern Kentucky, Long told Kentucky state lawmakers about the years he spent undergoing therapy designed to rid him of his “same-sex attraction.”

“Just imagine yourself being told, session after session, that if you remained as you were, you would be rejected,” he said.

Long testified in February before a Kentucky House committee against a Republican-sponsored bill that would cancel Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2024 executive order that banned a controversial practice known as “conversion therapy” for minors.

Conversion therapy is a catchall term for controversial efforts to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ+ people. Sometimes called “reparative therapy,” it can range from talk therapy and religious counseling to electrical shocks, pain-inducing aversion therapy and physical isolation.

The bill, Long told lawmakers, “creates a legal shield for conversion therapy, allowing parents to force their children into a practice condemned by every major medical and mental health organization worldwide.”

Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the bill, then overrode the governor’s veto in March.

Conversion therapy has been denounced by major medical organizations including the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. They say it’s ineffective and harmful and puts LGBTQ+ people at risk for depression, substance use, suicide and other mental health issues.

More than half of states have banned or restricted the practice for underage patients since California became the first to do so in 2012, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit research organization that tracks LGBTQ+-related laws and policies.

But political currents are shifting. Conservative majorities in the courts, in state legislatures and at the federal level have reshaped the legal landscape, opening the door for Republican lawmakers and conservative Christian groups to reinstate a practice that has been roundly discredited by the medical community.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging Colorado’s 2019 conversion therapy ban on freedom of speech grounds. The decision marks a change from 2017, when the court refused to hear a challenge to California’s ban, and 2023, when it declined to hear a challenge to Washington’s ban.

The high court’s decision, which isn’t expected until next year, could reverse — or solidify — conversion therapy bans across the country.

Last month, a Virginia court partially struck down the state’s 2020 law banning conversion therapy for minors, a win for conservative Christian organizations. GOP lawmakers in Michigan have introduced a bill to repeal the state’s ban. And Missouri‘s Republican attorney general has filed suit to overturn local conversion therapy bans.

On the flip side, in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court cleared the way earlier this year for the state to permanently ban the practice.

‘The world has changed’

While organized attempts to “cure” homosexuality have been around for centuries, “ex-gay” groups that promised to change a person’s sexual orientation began gaining ground in the 1990s as policy debates arose over same-sex marriage and gay people serving in the military, said Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He is also a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University whose research has focused on gender and sexuality.

But after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2004 and more states followed, the influence of conversion therapy proponents waned.

As of this year, 23 states and Washington, D.C., prevent licensed health care providers from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, according to an analysis of state laws by the Movement Advancement Project. Four more states restrict the practice, such as by not allowing public funding to go toward conversion therapy services.

State laws typically levy fines or discipline the professional licenses of practitioners who try to engage minors in conversion therapy. They don’t necessarily prevent clergy or unlicensed counselors from attempting such counseling.

The bans are more of a public statement of acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, rather than a commonly used preventive measure, said Drescher.

“The bans are reinforcements of the belief that if homosexuality is not a mental disorder or disease, there’s no reason to pretend you can treat it, and anybody who tries is acting outside the mainstream of science,” Drescher told Stateline.

The American Medical Association has written model legislation for state lawmakers who want to ban conversion therapy, a reflection of the broad consensus in the medical community that homosexuality and gender nonconformity are not mental illnesses, said R.J. Mills, a representative from the American Medical Association, in a statement to Stateline.

In the past, some leading psychiatric and psychological associations were hesitant to support state restrictions because they saw the laws as intrusions into the doctor-patient or therapist-patient relationship, Drescher said.

Now, spurred by Trump administration policies that place new restrictions on LGBTQ+ people and the most conservative U.S. Supreme Court in generations, medical organizations are growing more vocal in their opposition to conversion therapy.

“The world has changed,” Drescher said. “Everybody understands what’s at stake now.”

Free speech argument

Conservative legal firms have filed lawsuits in states such as Colorado, Michigan and Virginia on behalf of Christian counselors who say the laws prevent them from practicing according to their faith-based values. They say the bans should be repealed so practitioners won’t face losing their careers over providing services informed by their faith.

A Virginia court last month oversaw a consent decree in which Virginia agreed to not fully enforce its 2020 conversion therapy ban and to allow counselors to engage in talk conversion therapy with minors. The plaintiffs in the case were John and Janet Raymond, state-licensed professional counselors in Virginia who were represented by the Founding Freedoms Law Center, an organization that takes on conservative legal causes.

The kind of talk therapy now allowed can involve conversation, prayer and sharing of written materials such as religious scriptures, said Josh Hetzler, the Raymonds’ attorney, during a public news conference following the court decision.

“With this court order, every counselor in Virginia will now be able to speak freely, truthfully and candidly with clients who are seeking to have those critical conversations about their identity, and to hear faith-based insights from trusted professionals,” he said.

Conservative legislators also are citing their Christian faith in their attempts to roll back state bans.

Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver, a Republican, filed a package of bills last month aimed at repealing a handful of what he calls “anti-Christ laws,” including Michigan’s 2023 ban on conversion therapy for youth.

A legislative aide said Schriver wasn’t available for an interview, and instead referred Stateline to the recent Substack post he emailed to his constituents.

“As legislators, we’re duty-bound to remove statutes that overstep the authority given by our state and federal Constitutions,” Schriver said in the post.

Long, the Kentucky minister, said the bans are needed because “no one enters conversion therapy willingly.”

“The only reason a child would go through it is because a trusted authority in their life — a parent, a pastor or a therapist — has told them that they are broken and need to be fixed.”

At least five states have a law or policy prohibiting or deterring local-level ordinances that aim to protect youth from conversion therapy.

Some states without such laws are going after municipalities that have banned conversion therapy.

Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey in February sued Jackson County, Missouri, home to Kansas City, challenging the county’s 2023 ordinance and Kansas City’s 2019 ordinance, both of which ban licensed counselors from engaging in conversion therapy with minors.

“Our children have a right to therapy that allows for honest, unrestricted conversations, free from transgender indoctrination,” Bailey said in a statement in February. He called the ordinances “a dangerous overreach” that violate free speech and religious liberty rights.

A Republican loss

In at least one state, conservatives have hit a legal roadblock.

In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration has been trying since 2020 to enact a statewide conversion therapy ban proposed by the state agency that oversees provider licensing.

But the ban has been blocked twice by a Republican-controlled legislative committee.

Evers’ administration sued.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with Evers last month, ruling that the state legislative committee was overreaching and couldn’t block the rule.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The Wisconsin Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for the state to institute a ban on conversion therapy.

The court ruled that a Republican-controlled legislative committee’s rejection of a state agency rule that would ban the practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people was unconstitutional.

The 4-3 ruling from the liberal-controlled court comes amid the national battle over LGBTQ+ rights. It is also part of a broader effort by the Democratic governor, who has vetoed Republican bills targeting transgender high school athletes, to rein in the power of the GOP-controlled Legislature.

What is conversion therapy?

What is known as conversion therapy is the scientifically discredited practice of using therapy to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.

The practice has been banned in 23 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank. It is also banned in more than a dozen communities across Wisconsin. Since April 2024, the Wisconsin professional licensing board for therapists, counselors and social workers has labeled conversion therapy as unprofessional conduct.

Advocates seeking to ban the practice want to forbid mental health professionals in the state from counseling clients with the goal of changing their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in March to hear a Colorado case about whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children.

What is happening in Wisconsin?

Since April 2024, the Wisconsin professional licensing board for therapists, counselors and social workers has labeled conversion therapy as unprofessional conduct.

But the Legislature’s powerful Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules — a Republican-controlled panel in charge of approving state agency regulations — has blocked the provision twice.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the committee has been overreaching its authority in blocking a variety of other state regulations during Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration. That clears the way for the conversion therapy ban to be enacted.

Republicans who supported suspending the conversion therapy ban have insisted the issue isn’t the policy itself, but whether the licensing board had the authority to take the action it did.

Evers has been trying since 2020 to get the ban enacted, but the Legislature has stopped it from going into effect.

Evers called the ruling “incredibly important” and said it will stop a small number of lawmakers from “holding rules hostage without explanation or action and causing gridlock across state government.”

But Republican Sen. Steve Nass, co-chair of the legislative committee in question, said the ruling gives Evers “unchecked dominion to issue edicts without legislative review that will harm the rights of citizens.”

Legislative power weakened by ruling

The Legislature’s attorney argued that decades of precedent backed up their argument, including a 1992 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling upholding the Legislature’s right to suspend state agency rules.

Evers argued that by blocking the rule, the legislative committee is taking over powers that the state constitution assigns to the governor and exercising an unconstitutional “legislative veto.”

The Supreme Court agreed.

The court found that the Legislature was violating the state constitution’s requirement that any laws pass both houses of the Legislature and be presented to the governor.

The Legislature was illegally taking “action that alters the legal rights and duties of the executive branch and the people of Wisconsin,” Chief Justice Jill Karofsky wrote for the majority. She was joined by the court’s three other liberal justices.

Conservatives decry ruling

Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley said the ruling “lets the executive branch exercise lawmaking power unfettered and unchecked.” She and fellow conservative Justice Annette Ziegler said in dissents that the ruling shifts too much power to the executive branch and holds the Legislature to a higher legal standard.

“Progressives like to protest against ‘kings’ — unless it is one of their own making,” Bradley wrote.

Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, in a dissent, said the court’s ruling is “devoid of legal analysis and raises more questions than it answers.”

Hagedorn argued for a more narrow ruling that would have only declared unconstitutional the legislative committee’s indefinite objection to a building code rule.

The issue goes beyond conversion therapy

The conversion therapy ban is one of several rules that have been blocked by the legislative committee. Others pertain to environmental regulations, vaccine requirements and public health protections.

Environmental groups hailed the ruling.

The decision will prevent a small number of lawmakers from blocking the enactment of environmental protections passed by the Legislature and signed into law, said Wilkin Gibart, executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates.

The court previously sided with Evers in one issue brought in the lawsuit, ruling 6-1 last year that another legislative committee was illegally preventing the state Department of Natural Resources from funding grants to local governments and nongovernmental organizations for environmental projects under the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court clears the way for conversion therapy ban to be enacted is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Chief Justice Jill Karofsky, shown here during oral arguments in January, wrote for four justices that laws empowering the Legislature's Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative rules violate the Wisconsin Constitution. (Screenshot/WisEye)

State laws that let a 10-member committee of the Legislature override regulations are unconstitutional, a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The ruling hands the administration of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers a victory in an ongoing battle with the Legislature’s Republican leaders.

It also affirms that the state Legislature cannot renew its attempt to block regulations against conversion therapy for LGBTQ people, and appears to clear the way for an update of Wisconsin’s building code that was suspended nearly two years ago.

The ruling finds five statutes, granting power to the Legislature’s committee that reviews and periodically suspends administrative rules, violate the Wisconsin Constitution.

Taken together, wrote Chief Justice Jill Karofsky for the four justices making up the Court’s liberal wing, the statutes give the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules the power to effectively change state laws without going through the full legislative process.

“The ability of a ten-person committee to halt or interrupt the passage of a rule, which would ordinarily be required to be presented to the governor as a bill [to block the rule], is simply incompatible with Articles IV and V of the Wisconsin Constitution,” Karofsky wrote.

The Court’s three conservative justices took issue with the majority opinion, asserting that rulemaking itself involves legislative power and that Tuesday’s ruling improperly constrains the Legislature as the elected representatives of the people.

‘Legislative veto’ lawsuit 

The decision is the second to come from a lawsuit Evers filed in the fall of 2023, Evers v. Marklein, accusing the Republican leaders of the Legislature of exercising an unconstitutional “legislative veto” hampering the lawful powers of the executive branch to make administrative rules.

The Evers administration argued that five statutes granting JCRAR the power to review, object to and block rules before or after they are promulgated violate the state Constitution. Those include a law enacted in December 2018, after Evers was elected governor but before he took office, that allows the committee to lodge “indefinite” objections blocking a rule.

The Court majority agreed with the administration’s argument.

The Wisconsin Constitution requires that for a law to be enacted, it must pass both the Assembly and the Senate and then be presented to the governor to be signed or vetoed.

“By permitting JCRAR to exercise discretion over which approved rules may be promulgated and which may not, the statute empowers JCRAR to take action that alters the legal rights and duties of persons outside of the legislative branch” without going through the lawmaking process, Karofsky wrote.

The indefinite objection “prevents the agency from promulgating a rule unless the Legislature passes a bill enacting the rule,” she wrote. “Said another way, legislative inertia after an indefinite objection could permanently stop the promulgation of a rule.”

Evers, lawmakers, advocates praise Court’s ruling on regulations

The law allowing the committee to pause a rule for 30 days before it is promulgated “essentially allows JCRAR to capture control of agency rulemaking authority from the executive branch during the 30-day pause period,” Karofksy wrote.

The pause, which can be extended to 30 days “operates as a ‘pocket veto,’” she wrote. “Even if such an interruption is relatively brief, the constitution does not contemplate temporary violations of its provisions.”

Similarly, after the rule has been promulgated, JCRAR’s power to suspend it multiple times “means that even after promulgation, JCRAR could suspend a rule repeatedly in perpetuity with no other checks in place,” the chief justice wrote.

Clearing way for conversion therapy ban, new building code

In overturning the five statutes, the Court majority also revoked two earlier rulings that had affirmed some of JCRAR’s powers — one from 1992, upholding the committee’s temporary suspension of a rule, and the other from 2020, endorsing the power to suspend a rule multiple times.

Evers’ suit focused on two rules that JCRAR blocked, both produced under the umbrella of the state Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS).

One rule prohibited therapists from using discredited conversion therapy to try to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people. It was adopted by the Wisconsin Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work Examining Board.

“When the Board created new professional conduct rules banning conversion therapy, it exercised its statutory authority,” Karofksy wrote. “But when JCRAR objected to the rule it effectively blocked the Board’s authority” under Wisconsin law “to govern the professional conduct of its licensees.”

The conversion therapy rule was suspended in January 2023, but reinstated after the Legislature concluded its work for the 2023-24 session.

With “the multiple suspension provision,” however, Karofsky wrote, “JCRAR has the authority to suspend this rule again, in perpetuity.”

Another rule updated the state commercial building code to international standards set in 2021.

“The goal of these chapters is to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public,” Karofsky wrote. JCRAR’s indefinite suspension of the code in 2023  “prevented DSPS from completing its statutory rulemaking duties,” she wrote.

Conservative justices object

Justice Brian Hagedorn, one of three members of the Court’s conservative wing, wrote an opinion that concurred with the majority on narrow grounds but dissented on finding the five laws at issue unconstitutional.

The JCRAR indefinite objection to the building code rule is unconstitutional under a 1992 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, Hagedorn wrote.

He argued that the conversion therapy rule is now outside the Court’s purview, however.

“This ethical rule is already in effect; it is no longer suspended,” Hagedorn wrote. “Since a ruling on JCRAR’s actions with respect to this rule would have no legal effect, this claim is moot, and we have nothing further to decide.”

Hagedorn criticized the decision’s far-reaching findings that whole statutes were unconstitutional, however. He said it also failed to grapple with arguments about the constitutional status of regulation by executive branch agencies.

“The effect of the majority’s decision is to greenlight executive alteration of legal rights and duties outside the lawmaking process while prohibiting legislative alteration of legal rights and duties outside the lawmaking process,” Hagedorn wrote.

Former Chief Justice Annette Ziegler and Justice Rebecca Bradley published separate sharply worded dissents.

Ziegler wrote that the majority ruling was the outcome of “this court’s misguided quest to restructure and unbalance our state government, culminating in even more power and control being allocated to the executive branch.”

“The legislature has delegated executive branch agencies broad rulemaking authority with the understanding that it will be able to oversee administrative rulemaking through JCRAR,” Ziegler wrote. “The majority now pulls the rug out from under the legislature…”

Bradley, invoking lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s song “Badlands” in which the singer says “a king ain’t satisfied ‘til he rules everything,” charged that the majority “lets the executive branch exercise lawmaking power unfettered and unchecked.”

Her dissent offered a full-throated attack on the administrative state and executive branch regulatory authority.

“The majority invokes the Wisconsin Constitution to take power from the People’s elected representatives in the legislature and bestow it on the executive branch, empowering unelected bureaucrats to rule over the People,” Bradley wrote.

2025-07-08_SCOWI_Evers v Marklein – JCRAR

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE