Wisconsin Sued Over Conversion Therapy Ban, as Governor Refuses To Rescind It After Supreme Court Ruling

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers is refusing to rescind his state’s ban on conversion therapy, even after the U.S. Supreme Court said a similar ban in Colorado suppresses speech — prompting a conservative law firm to sue. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a lawsuit on Wednesday on behalf of two Christian counselors in Wisconsin, challenging the ban on conversion therapy — which aims to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity — on the grounds that it is a form of viewpoint discrimination.The lawsuit argues that Wisconsin’s ban is “materially identical” to a Colorado ban on conversion therapy for minors. In March, the Supreme Court sided with a Colorado-based therapist, Kaley Chiles, who said the law violated her First Amendment rights by forcing her to share the state’s preferred message on the matter of gender identity or sexual orientation. The court said the ban “censors speech based on viewpoint,” and sent the challenge back to a lower court to apply a stricter standard when considering whether the law is constitutional. WILL’s lawsuit says, “For the same reasons described above, the [Wisconsin] rule is unconstitutional under the First Amendment as impermissible viewpoint discrimination. Nevertheless, despite the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Chiles, defendants have shown no signs of ceasing enforcement and repealing this unconstitutional rule.”Mr. Evers sought to enact a ban on conversion therapy shortly after he first took office in 2019. The Department of Safety and Professional Services proposed an administrative rule that prohibits licensed social workers, marriage counselors, and family therapists from conducting conversion therapy. The rule describes such therapy as “any intervention or method that has the purpose of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” It says the rule does not “include counseling that assists a client who is seeking to undergo a gender transition.” But it was delayed for years as Republicans in the legislature tried to block the ban. The Wisconsin Supreme Court said in 2025 that Mr. Evers’ rule could go into effect, ending Republican lawmakers’ efforts to block it. Critics of conversion therapy say it is harmful. A think tank focused on sexual orientation and gender identity, the Williams Institute at UCLA, says its research found that patients who underwent conversion therapy experienced “nearly double the odds of lifetime suicidal ideation” compared to people who identify as LGBT who did not undergo conversion therapy.However, opponents of the bans say they violate the Constitution by covering more than just physical treatments and restricting speech, forcing licensed professionals to advance the state’s preferred message. They also argue that proponents of bans on the practice have failed to produce evidence that talk therapy causes harm. The future of Wisconsin’s ban has been called into question after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Ms. Chiles. After the decision, WILL sent a letter to Mr. Evers demanding that he rescind the rule banning conversion therapy.However, Mr. Evers said that he has “no intention of repealing Wisconsin’s conversion therapy ban.”He accused WILL of “bullying LGBTQ children” and insisted that the firm’s demand “relies on a significant misreading of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision.” The governor said the Supreme Court “specifically stopped short” of striking down the ban and “declared that a ‘more searching scrutiny’ than rational basis review was warranted for certain applications.”Mr. Evers also said that Chiles was only focused on the portion of Colorado’s conversion therapy ban that focused on speech, but did not address the prohibition on physical interventions. He added that Wisconsin’s ban “covers much more than just talk therapy, and so it undoubtedly continues to have many valid applications.”“The Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling and Social Work Examining Board will maintain the rule and continue to enforce its valid applications, in order to protect Wisconsinites from harmful and offensive practices,” Mr. Evers said.He added that the Department of Safety and Professional Services will add a note to the rule that states that “certain instances of the unprofessional conduct addressed in the above provision … are the subject of ongoing litigation.”Advocacy organizations have defended the rule, such as the National Association of Social Workers, which said in a post on Facebook that Wisconsin law “clearly gives” the state the authority to prohibit “harmful practices.” But some proponents of the ban have suggested that the state may need to issue clarifications after the Supreme Court’s Chiles decision. In April, the executive director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights told Wisconsin Pubic Radio that the ban “too closely resemble[s]” Colorado’s law and that it “could be rewritten so that they still make clear that coercive or dangerous therapy practices are banned, without the possibility of seeming like viewpoint discrimination.”In a statement, WILL deputy counsel Rebecca Furdek criticized Mr. Evers for his “inflammatory, baseless” allegations that the law firm bullied children and said Christian counselors have “every right” to provide “Christ-centered” talk therapy.

Wisconsin Sued Over Conversion Therapy Ban, as Governor Refuses To Rescind It After Supreme Court Ruling

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